The Devil Comes Back to Retroville
by GaDS2000
Summary: Cindy suspects Lou's motives when he returns to help Jimmy with his problems. But who is the stranger keeping an eye on Cindy?
1. Part 1 The Long Bomb

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 1:

"Hey, Jimmy! Over here!"

Jimmy Neutron waved in response to the greeting and headed over to his friends Carl Wheezer and Sheen Estevez. It was a warm Saturday morning and although Carl and Sheen were usually occupied with television and video games Jimmy had arranged the night before to meet with them to demonstrate his latest invention. At first the two were reluctant to participate, but after repeated assurances that the new device would not be explosive, radioactive, nor capable of altering the laws of time and space Carl and Sheen had eventually agreed to meet Jimmy in the park.

"Hey, guys," Jimmy said. "Thanks for coming. I guarantee that you won't regret it."

"No problem, Jimmy," Sheen replied easily. "It isn't every day that you treat us to anything we want at the Candy Bar."

"And today is no exception," was Jimmy's annoyed response. "I never said that I'd treat you to anything at the Candy Bar."

Sheen looked crestfallen. "Oh. I guess that was just something I dreamt about last night. I don't suppose that Libby was elected Miss Retroville and won a free trip around the world with the companion of her choice, was she?"

"I don't think so," Carl answered. "Why?"

"No reason," Sheen said, somewhat uncomfortably, "but I think I'd better cancel an order I made with the Flower Bower this morning."

"What did you have to show us, Jimmy?" Carl wanted to know.

"Only the greatest invention in the history of boy-girl relationships since the 2-for-1 movie pass." Jimmy had been rummaging through some items in his backpack and now held up one of them. "Behold the Neutron Velociball!"

Sheen and Carl stared at the oval object with a mixture of curiosity and apathy. "It looks like a football," Carl finally offered.

"It is a football – "Jimmy began but was interrupted by Sheen.

"Uh, no offense, Jim," Sheen said, "but I think girls are more into things like jewelry…"

"…and clothes…" Carl added.

"…and candy…"

"…and llamas…"

"…and –" Sheen broke off suddenly to glare at Carl. "What do you mean, llamas?" he demanded.

"Well," answered Carl weakly, "they're cute, and cuddly, and non-threatening, and other things like that that girls like."

Sheen considered it. "Yeah, I guess maybe you're right. If they played instruments and sang they'd probably make a good boy band." A thought suddenly hit him. "What am I saying? Boy bands don't sing or play instruments. All they have to do is lip synch. Do llamas have lips?"

"Well – " Carl began.

Jimmy had enough. "Guys, focus!" he said impatiently. "We were talking about the Neutron Velociball."

"Actually, we were talking about girls and football," Sheen pointed out. "You were talking about the Neutron Volleyball."

"Velociball," corrected Jimmy. "And it's not just a football. It's the greatest football ever."

"How so, Jimmy?" Carl asked.

"Okay," Jimmy said. "You know that Retroville Days are coming up, right?"

"Of course," Sheen replied.

"Well, this year there's going to be a dance. But the girls have to ask the guys. Right?"

"Yeah," said Carl with a snorting laugh. "But only if they can find us."

"Well, the thing is that no matter how humiliating it is for someone to ask us to the dance, it would be even more humiliating if no one did. Right?"

Sheen nodded. "Okay, I see your point. But what's with the football?"

"Velociball," Jimmy corrected again. "Look, who do girls really go for?"

"Older Hispanic types?" suggested Sheen, preening.

"Non-threatening sensitive boys?" Carl said hopefully.

Jimmy shook his head. "No. They go for athletes, like football players."

"I get it!" cried Sheen. "So you're going to give your ball to some football players if they'll get some of their girlfriends to ask us to the dance! Right?"

Jimmy stood there silently, a look of stunned amazement on his face. "No," he said finally. "We're going to use this ball to impress girls with our athletic ability."

Sheen's delighted expression slowly faded and he fidgeted uncomfortably. "Actually, Jimmy, I don't know if you remember, but I have no hand-eye coordination, my depth perception is shot -"

"And I still have that old scapula injury from baseball," added Carl, rubbing his lower back.

"Relax, guys," Jimmy reassured them. "With the Neutron Velociball there's absolutely no chance of failure. My special design makes this ball perfectly balanced and guarantees pinpoint accuracy. And in addition, I've put in a special feature – the transphasal generator." He stopped, beaming in triumph.

"Wait for it," Sheen whispered to Carl. Carl nodded.

"The transphasal generator creates a field that causes anything in front of it to temporarily phase into another dimension. It creates a virtual void that eliminates air resistance in front of the velociball, kind of like when cyclists or migrating ducks do when they draft for each other. It at least triples whatever distance someone can throw a regular football."

"O-ka-a-ay," said Sheen slowly. "What's the catch?"

"There is no catch," Jimmy shot back, impatiently. "We just need to toss the velociball back and forth in front of some girls and they'll be sure to be impressed. We just need –" He broke off suddenly. "Look!" he whispered, pointing. "Test subjects!"

Sheen and Carl looked. "It's Cindy and Libby," Carl observed.

"True," whispered Jimmy. "But I guess they'll do until some real girls show up. Hey, Carl!" he called loudly. "Go long! Sheen, try to intercept!"

"Go along where?" Carl asked in confusion.

"Just run that way!" Jimmy retorted, pointing.

Confused and skeptical, Carl and Sheen ran down the imaginary field while Jimmy waited to unload the long bomb that he planned to throw. Cindy and Libby, who had heard Jimmy's shout, watched in mild anticipation. "What do you think they're up to now, Cindy?" asked Libby.

"Probably trying to impress somebody with their pseudo-athletic antics," she guessed.

"Think we should ignore them?"

Cindy shook her head. "No. This should be good for a laugh," she said, folding her arms and waiting.

A couple hundred feet away near the fountain Carl and Sheen gradually slowed to a halt, gasping from exertion. "For the love of humanity, Jimmy!" Sheen panted. "Throw the ball!"

"Okay! Here it comes, Carl!" Jimmy called back. He drew back his arm and hurled it as hard as he could towards his friends. For the first few seconds all went as planned and the humming velociball spun towards Carl and Sheen in a high arc. Carl, seeing that the ball would be going over his head, climbed onto the edge of the fountain and held his arms out in expectant apprehension. Sheen, who was taller than Carl, judged the incoming flight of the velociball and leaped up to intercept it.

"Gotcha!" he cried out in victory as his hands closed on the spinning object. "Now I – hey!" His cry of exuberance was cut short as the ball transferred its spin to him, whirling off his feet, whipping him helplessly around, and carrying the hapless boy straight into Carl. The end result was for both of them to topple unceremoniously into the fountain.

"Scapula," Carl cried weakly from inside.

Libby and Cindy were helpless with laughter. "Uh…good hustle guys," Jimmy called feebly in a futile attempt to salvage the situation.

"You were right, Cindy," Libby said breathlessly, wiping tears from her eyes. "It was good for a laugh."

"I don't know, Libs," Cindy laughed just loud enough for Jimmy to hear as the girls walked away. "Do you think football is ready for the Three Stooges of the Apocalypse?"

"Sorry about that, guys," Jimmy apologized as Carl and Sheen, drenched to the skin, walked up. "I guess maybe I need to re-evaluate some of my calculations. The next time –"

"You know what, Jimmy?" Sheen interrupted as he wrung out his Ultra Lord shirt. "I think maybe I'll just take my chances on whether someone is going to ask me to the dance or not."

"Me too," agreed Carl, as he departed with Sheen. "With my bad scapula I don't think I could go to the dance anyway."

Jimmy sadly walked over to the fountain and retrieved the velociball from the water. "What's the use?" he muttered to himself as he sat on a nearby bench to assess possible damage from its unexpected dunking. "It's not like anyone would ever want to ask a boy genius like me out even if I were a great athlete." So intent was he on his inspection and introspection that he was startled by a voice from behind.

"Sounds like you have issues," the voice said.

End of Part 1

Author's Notes:

One very faithful reader has asked whether the stories I write are chronological in nature and by inference leading up to something between Jimmy and Cindy as events unfold. That's a very good question, as it's hard to determine at times just how chronological the TV episodes are.

The long answer is they do follow an order and my later stories can be assumed to occur after my earlier stories. Since I don't want anyone to feel like they're missing anything if they haven't read any of the earlier stories or read them out of order I don't make many obvious references to my other stories. On the other hand, I don't own the copyright or any other rights to Jimmy Neutron et. al. so that the only "official" stories are the ones that air on Nickelodeon. I want to keep development of the characters in line with what happens in the show (although I try to adhere to the spirit of the characters rather than just what they've said or done), and that limits how far I feel I can take things. In addition, while I do feel there is chemistry between Jimmy and Cindy that will eventually bring them together, once that happens a lot of the magic between them will fade. Most or all of these stories end with Jimmy and Cindy almost together and in the next they are almost back to Square One. Considering that they are about 11 or 12 years old it makes sense to me that they aren't yet ready for a long-term relationship, and that much of their relationship consists of discovering just how deeply their feelings for each other really run. That discovery, like many other discoveries, can be both exciting and confusing and take some unexpected turns and would justify any temporary backsliding.

The short answer is that this story definitely happens after an earlier story, "The Devil and Jimmy Neutron". But I expect that most long-time readers will have already suspected that.


	2. Part 2 Shake Hands With the Devil

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 2:

Jimmy twisted around to see who had spoken to him. It was a boy, a year or two older than himself, with stylishly long hair, fashionably casual clothes, and an easy smile. Jimmy couldn't recall ever seeing him before, but there was something about the stranger, almost like a feeling of déjà vu, that Jimmy couldn't quite place.

"I'm sorry," Jimmy said. "But – do I know you?"

The boy smiled. "I know a few of your friends, so you may have seen me around." He stuck out a hand. "The name's Cipher. Call me Lou."

"Lou." Jimmy repeated the name in a futile attempt to find it in extensive files of his photographic memory. "I'm –"

"Jimmy Neutron. I know." Lou shook Jimmy's hand, and Jimmy found the touch to be both chilling and unnerving. It was as though he had stuck his hand in an ice bath and the heat from his body had been drawn from him into some insatiable void. "I couldn't help overhearing you. It sounded as though you had some problems you'd like to solve."

"What? Oh." Jimmy's thoughts came back to his present situation, like a film coming back into focus. "Yeah. Kind of. I think I need to recalibrate the transfer ratio of the transphasal generator so that –"

Lou was shaking his head. "No, not that. I mean girl problems."

Jimmy was taken aback. "What makes you think I have girl problems?"

"I've never met a guy who didn't."

"Well, I'm the exception," Jimmy said, shaking his head. "I don't have a girl problem."

Lou laughed. "There's an old joke that says there are only two types of guys in the world, Jimmy. One says, 'I don't have a girl problem.' The other says, 'I don't have a girl. Problem.' But they're really in the same boat. It's just that the second type is smart enough to understand the situation."

Jimmy hesitated. It was in fact a subject he actually did want to discuss with someone and there was an air of self-assurance about Lou that seemed to inspire trust. Lou seemed to sense his imminent capitulation and perched sociably on the back of the bench, waiting patiently for Jimmy to speak. "Oh, who am I kidding?" Jimmy sighed at last. "I do have a problem."

"Anyone in particular?" Lou prodded.

"Yes. I mean, no. I mean, it's kind of complicated." Jimmy paused to collect his thoughts before going on. "It…really isn't about someone else. It's about me. I'm the smartest kid in school, and that doesn't exactly make me the most popular guy around. I mean, what self-respecting girl would want to be seen with the class brainiac?"

Lou looked thoughtful. "Have you considered meeting girls without any self-respect?"

That startled Jimmy. "What?"

"Just a joke," Lou smiled. "Go on."

"Oh." Jimmy thought for a moment and shook his head. "Actually, that's pretty much it. I'm just not the type of guy that girls are interested in. And I don't see that there's any way to change that."

"That's what I thought." Lou hopped off the bench. "Jimmy, I don't think that there's ever been a guy who hasn't felt the same way – that girls only want athletes, or rock stars, or celebrities, but not them. But if that was true, how is it that girls fall for ordinary guys every day?"

Jimmy scratched his head. "Is it because there aren't enough rich and famous guys around and ordinary guys are better than nothing?"

"You've been hanging around Sheen too much." Lou shook his head. "No. It's because girls are interested in who someone is, not what they are. Think about it. Who's the most popular guy at Lindbergh Elementary?"

"Nick Dean."

"Exactly. Why?"

"Because he's cool."

"No. That's the initial attraction. But I'll bet not one of the girls swooning over him doesn't think about who he is – his thoughts, his feelings, his dreams, everything that makes Nick who he is. That's what they're really after."

"Okay," Jimmy conceded. "So where does that lead?"

"That leads to this. Who are girls really searching for?"

Jimmy tried hard to think like a girl and failed miserably. "Someone who likes to dance and collects unicorns?"

Lou buried his face in his hands. "No."

"Prince Charming?"

"Closer. But not quite."

"What then?"

Lou paced slowly back and forth in front of Jimmy, speaking with a faraway voice. "There are about 6 billion people in this world, Jimmy. With those kind of numbers statistics have to say that no one is unique, that they're just another drop in the ocean or a grain of sand on the shore. How could one person in all those billions ever hope to feel like anyone special?" He stopped and looked at Jimmy, his dark eyes holding Jimmy's gaze like a hypnotist. "And that's who each girl is searching for. It's the same person that everyone is searching for. A person who will make them feel that they are than just another number, and among the billions of others in this world that they have value. Someone who makes them special." Lou's voice became more intense. "Someone like you."

Jimmy answered like someone in a trance. "How?"

Lou smiled, and had Jimmy been in any condition to notice the smile on Lou's face was far less pleasant than before. "I'll tell you."

As Jimmy listened to Lou's soft words Cindy and Libby entered the park, returning home from their early Saturday morning window shopping. "I don't know, Cindy," Libby was saying. "30% is a pretty good discount for those shoes, but I think that they'll go to 40% or more before summer is over."

"Maybe," Cindy admitted. "But there's no guarantee that they'll still be there when the big sales hit. 30% is pretty tempting for amateurs who don't understand the sales."

"True enough. But I still think you should wait."

"But the dance is just a week away. This would be a…perfect time…to…" Cindy's voice trailed off as she stared at the two figures near the park fountain. Although they were still some way off she could instantly recognize one of the figures as Jimmy. Although the other was not as familiar, she could not mistake him even at this distance. Some intuitive sense inside her immediately signaled danger.

Lou Cipher was back.

And he was after Jimmy.

End of Part 2


	3. Part 3 Who Watches the Watcher?

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 3:

Cindy stood motionless, peering at Jimmy and Lou as though trying to divine the purpose of their meeting through sheer force of will. She had all but forgotten Libby at her side and only barely responded to what Libby said.

"A perfect time? For what?" Libby asked.

"What?" _This is not good_, Cindy thought. _Not good at all._

"Earth to Cindy. Are you feeling OK?" Libby gave Cindy a concerned look.

"OK?" _The last time Lou was here Jimmy and I barely got away from him._

"Oh, look. Miss Fowl is skinny-dipping in the fountain."

"Uh-huh." _I've got to find out what he's up to._

"And Carl and Sheen are dancing the overture to _Swan Lake_."

"That's nice." _I probably wouldn't be able to find out anything from Jimmy. But Lou…_

"And isn't that Timmy Turner kissing Britney over behind those bushes?"

"I guess." Cindy came to a decision and looked at Libby, who was standing with her arms folded and wearing an annoyed expression.

"Have a nice nap?" Libby asked.

"Oh. Sorry. Listen, I have something to do. I'll catch up with you later, OK?"

"Fine by me," answered Libby as Cindy watched her walk away. "I've had more interesting conversation with a Fuzzbie."

Cindy sighed. She would explain to Libby later, but for the moment she had more important things to attend to. She looked about her, noted various places of cover in the park, and began moving furtively from one to another in an attempt to get closer to Jimmy and Lou without being seen. After two or three minutes she managed to reach a large bush about ten feet behind Lou and waited there, listening intently.

"So that's it," Lou was saying. "Think you can handle it?"

"Yes." That was Jimmy's voice, but it sounded odd to Cindy. "It sounds simple enough. I shouldn't have any problems."

"Good. Get going on that, and the next time I see you I'll fill you in on a few more details. Remember, I'm always happy to help." Cindy heard Lou laugh, and at the memory of the sound she gritted her teeth angrily.

"Okay. And thanks. I appreciate it."

"Any time." Cindy heard the sound of footsteps - she supposed they were Jimmy's - fading away. As they died away into the distance she heard Lou say softly, as though to himself, "Any time at all, Jimmy. Always happy to help an old…acquaintance."

Lou waited a few seconds, and then turned and walked slowly away with a wide smile crossing his face. _Phase 1 accomplished,_ he thought with satisfaction. _Now for -_ His thoughts were abruptly interrupted as he felt hands grab him from behind, spin him about, and pin him against the trunk of a tree.

"Okay, Lou," Cindy snarled, holding him by the front of his shirt. "What's going on?"

Lou recovered quickly from his surprise and smiled that infuriatingly easy smile. "Hey, Cindy," he said amiably. "Long time no see. Did you miss me?"

"Not long enough,' Cindy retorted, releasing her hold on him. "Just what do you think you're doing with Jimmy?"

"Nothing he doesn't want," was Lou's terse reply.

"Don't play games with me!" Cindy nearly shouted. "Jimmy may not remember you, but I do! You want something from him. What is it?"

Lou smiled and held up his hands, looking innocent. "You've got me all wrong. Jimmy had a problem, and I'm just trying to help him, just like I tried helping you out once. Can't I do something nice for somebody in trouble?"

Cindy's voice dripped with contempt. "You wouldn't give anybody change for a nickel without wanting two cents on the deal. What did you get Jimmy to promise you?"

"Nothing. Honest."

"Nothing?" Cindy echoed with suspicion. "No contract, no deal, no promises?"

Lou solemnly held up his right hand. "No contract, no deal, no promises. Nothing."

"If you're lying to me…" was all Cindy could say.

"Not to you," Lou answered softly, looking into her eyes in a way that made Cindy feel uncertain and uncomfortable. "Never to you." His voice changed and became businesslike. "But what's the big? From the way you usually talk about Jimmy I'd hardly expect you to care about his problems or how he deals with them. It sounds as though maybe you've been having some thoughts or feelings that…"

That seemed to be a big mistake, for Cindy grabbed the front of Lou's shirt and dragged his nose within inches of hers, a dangerous light burning in her emerald eyes. "What I say about Neutron is one thing," she said fiercely. "What I think about him is another." She dragged Lou's face another inch closer bit out the next words like pieces of steel. "And how I feel about him is none of your or anyone else's business." She pushed Lou away. "Just don't try anything. I'll be watching."

Lou raised his hands, palms outwards in a sign of peace. "I promise. I won't try anything funny with Jimmy." Cindy gave him a last suspicious look and then walked off. When she was out of sight Lou allowed himself another smile. _Phase 2 accomplished,_ he though with satisfaction.

On her way home Cindy stopped at the Candy Bar to have a Purple Flurp and think over the situation with Lou and Jimmy. It was while she was thinking that she first noticed the stranger. He was a black youth dressed somewhat on the shabby side sitting in a booth and reading a book, and usually Cindy would have been too preoccupied to have paid him any attention. But her encounter with Lou had left her shaken and edgy and she could almost sense that he was watching her closely. Whenever she looked directly at him he was always engrossed in his reading. But whenever he was in the scope of her peripheral vision she was sure he was staring intently at her. After several minutes of trying to catch him staring at her she gave up and headed home.

The trip home was equally unnerving. She felt as though someone was following closely behind her, and several times she turned to see who it was. Each time there was no one there, but once or twice she was almost certain she saw the stranger a block or so behind her slipping behind a tree or hedge. Cindy had never had a stalker (although in third grade an infatuated schoolmate had followed her home every day for over a month) but she suspected she now had one. Once safely at home she thought over the events of the morning. Who was the stranger? Was he somehow mixed up with Lou? And what was Lou up to?

All she knew, with an unreasoned but chilling certainty, was that something terrible was going to happen. And somehow Jimmy was the key.

End of Part 3

Author's Notes:

Although my plan is to eventually provide enough details about Lou and past events to permit readers to ultimately understand the plot of this story, some newer readers may want to read "The Devil and Jimmy Neutron" to learn the details about Cindy's and Jimmy's first encounter with Lou.


	4. Part 4 Dr Jimmy and Mr Right

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 4:

While Cindy was pondering the identity and motives of the stranger she had noticed, Jimmy was working in his laboratory. Except for Goddard Jimmy was alone in the lab and as he busied himself with various pieces of equipment his mechanical pet watched with growing apprehension. Finally, when Jimmy picked up a metallic helmet, Goddard gave a whine of worried recognition.

"What is it, Goddard?" Jimmy asked without turning from his work.

Goddard whined again, and then barked. When Jimmy again failed to stop whatever he was doing Goddard barked again. With a sigh of resignation Jimmy finally turned around to face his persistent companion, a jeweler's precision screwdriver in one hand and a partially disassembled circuit assembly in the other.

"What is it, Goddard?" Jimmy repeated with a trace of impatience.

In reply Goddard looked from Jimmy to the helmet and back again, whining with concern. Jimmy mimicked Goddard's actions, looking from Goddard to the helmet and back again. After a few seconds of bewildered silence Jimmy suddenly understood.

"Oh, I get it. You're worried about me using the brain drain helmet, aren't you?" Goddard gave a bark of affirmation. "Well, don't worry. I know I had some problems with it the first time, and then there was that whole episode with Sheen, but I'm not going to be using it. I just need to get the synaptic router from the cerebral interface circuit."

Goddard gave Jimmy a sideways look, requesting more information.

Jimmy set the tool and assembly on the workbench and stood up with a sigh. It was his habit to walk back and forth when he was trying to explain something he himself wasn't completely clear on, and this was one of those times. He still wasn't clear himself whether he was doing the right thing and it helped to talk. "It's like this, Goddard," he said as he paced. "All my life I've been different from most people and it's been hard for me to get to…well, get very close to anyone. All this time I thought it was because I was so smart that it made people uncomfortable. But today someone helped me to see how that wasn't the problem at all. It's not that girls don't like me because I'm so smart, Goddard. It's because I don't know how to relate to them. I'm a left-brained person trying to establish right-brained relationships. For years I thought that I could think my way around the problem, but in some situations you just have to go through the problem. And that's what I'm doing now."

Goddard had been listening intently, his head moving to and fro like a clock pendulum as his gaze followed Jimmy walking back and forth in front of him. He gave another whine and Jimmy stopped, having come to his main point.

"Basically, Goddard, I'm rebalancing my brain," Jimmy told him. "I'm going to shut down some of the activity on the intellectual left side of my brain and transfer it to the creative right side." Goddard gave a yelp of disbelief, sitting up in complete astonishment at this news as Jimmy pounded a fist into his open palm in decision. "Yes," he said in renewed determination. "I'm going to do it. For the first time in my life I'm going to be a well-rounded and fun person to be with, and not just some logical, fact-spouting automaton. And the sooner the better."

Having made his decision Jimmy turned back to his work with renewed energy while Goddard watched and continued to worry. The time passed quickly for Jimmy as he skillfully manipulated, connected, and verified tiny components, oftentimes using a microscope and delicate tools to perform the tasks. As he worked something drifted through the back of his mind and bothered him, like a melody he that couldn't quite remember or an equation that he couldn't quite solve. Finally, however, the last microwire was bonded and the last check performed, and his latest invention (which looked something like an electronic bike helmet) was ready for use. As he rose to connect the intricate device to his head Goddard rose expectantly and walked over to stand next to him.

"Hey, boy," he said, reaching down to stroke Goddard's head. "I forgot all about you. I guess I wasn't very good company, was I?" Goddard looked up and Jimmy saw, or imagined he saw, a pleading look in the photoreceptors. "I know you're worried, Goddard, but don't be. Everything will be all right. If anything, I'll be even better company for you than I ever was."

Goddard merely hung his head and whimpered. Although he was not especially familiar with the concept of left-brain and right-brain processes he knew or sensed that the Jimmy he knew and loved was somehow going away. Jimmy seemed to understand what Goddard was thinking and hugged him around the neck.

"Don't be sad, boy," he said. "I'm not going anywhere. I'll just be doing things a little differently is all. It'll still be me. Really." Goddard looked up, seeming to cheer up a little. "That's a good dog," Jimmy said. "After this is over we'll get you a nice aluminum can. Would you like that?" At this Goddard barked happily and sat up in a begging position. "Yes, I thought you would. Then let's get this over with."

He slipped the electronic helmet on his head and fastened several electrodes to his temples and forehead. Then, not sure what would happen to him while his brain was being re-balanced, he crossed the lab to a padded couch, lay down on it, and adjusted straps across his shoulders, chest, and stomach. His finger moved to the actuation switch and for a second he paused as he looked around the lab that had been so familiar to him. Then he threw the switch, activating the device.

It seemed that he was watching a montage of bizarre images, like an insane video running incredibly fast. Equations and formulas materialized before his eyes only to dematerialize before he could understand them, and technical discussions changed into the voices of people he felt he should know but couldn't recall. Scenes from his past flashed before him, and all the faces in them that he had long known seemed somehow new to him.

Nick.

Betty.

Libby.

Sheen.

Carl.

_Cindy…_

He could almost feel the warmth of her hand in his and smell the pleasant fragrance of her hair as he was drawn into the exquisite green depths of her eyes. Her voice was almost musical to him and seemed to be a gentle promise of days together that were yet to come. As he watched she began to recede from him into the blackness, her hand stretched out towards him. Was she bidding him farewell, or asking him to follow? As he pondered the question she vanished into a bright ring of light in the void and he was left alone.

He suddenly became aware that he was staring up at the ceiling of his lab and that the ring of light he had seen was an overhead lighting fixture. Sluggishly he undid the straps holding him to the couch and he sat up, trying to clear his confused thoughts. At first he was not sure that anything had changed and thought perhaps that his invention had done nothing more than give him some strange hallucinations. Then he became aware of something that convinced him that his invention had worked and that he was different. There could be no other explanation for it.

He was in love with Cindy Vortex.

End of Part 4


	5. Part 5 Feelings

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 5:

The first stage following any traumatic event is denial. After first realizing that he was in love with Cindy Jimmy spent the next hour or so trying to convince himself that he was in shock, delirious, unconscious, or anything other than being in love with her. After he had ruled out each possibility he then tried to take his mind off the topic entirely by diving into some advanced quantum mechanics, but gave up when his equations all ended up as some variation of J.N. C.V. = 4EVER. At length Jimmy was forced to admit that the feelings truly were there and from force of habit he tried to think things through.

"Okay," he told himself, "this isn't the end of the world. Nobody knows about this, and if I keep it under control nobody ever has to know. And maybe," he added hopefully, "this isn't permanent. People in Hollywood fall in and out of love all the time. Maybe all I need to do is wait and it will go away on its own." He sat down and took a few deep breaths to steady himself. "That's better. I feel calm and relaxed. Everything is going to be fine."

After fifteen seconds he suddenly he jumped up again and began walking franticly about the lab. "It's not going away! Why isn't it going away?" he demanded in desperation. "This is terrible! All I can think about is being with her! What am I going to do?" He swung towards Goddard. "Goddard! Options!"

At Jimmy's order Goddard opened the cover to his video screen to reveal the words:

GIVE GODDARD THE CAN YOU PROMISED HIM.

"Later, Goddard," Jimmy said, impatiently. "This is serious. Next."

Goddard then displayed the message:

JOIN THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION.

Jimmy shook his head. "That's no good. I'm not old enough to join without Mom's and Dad's permission and they'd never agree to it. Well, Dad might sign if I caught him when he was busy with his duck collection, but Mom would never agree. Next."

Goddard's viewscreen then showed:

DISCUSS IT WITH A TRUSTED PEER GROUP.

Jimmy thought about it. Talking about his feelings with someone somehow struck a sympathetic chord with Jimmy. "I guess that might work, " he admitted. "I'm sure that Sheen and Carl have had these feelings. They might know how to deal with them. And even if they don't it would be interesting to see what they think about other things. Thanks, Goddard." He glanced at the chicken-shaped kitchen clock set to Retroville time and saw that it was shortly after 4:00, presumably in the afternoon. If he had labored all night he was sure that his mother would have called him. About this time of day Carl and Sheen were either at the Candy Bar or watching one of their Saturday afternoon programs. Jimmy decided to chance the Candy Bar, as in the event that Carl and Sheen were not present there might be someone else like Nick there that might be able to help him.

Although it wasn't especially far to the Candy Bar Jimmy used his jet pack to get there, partly because he was in a hurry and partly because he didn't want to run into anybody on the way over. He made it to his destination without mishap and was relieved to find that Carl and Sheen were both there having a soda and one of their many differences of opinion about nothing in particular.

"And I say," Sheen was arguing hotly, "that there is no way that Ultra Lord would ever be partners with some dufus named the Galactic Gaucho with some twerpy sidekick named Llama Lad!"

"And why not?" Carl demanded just as fervently.

"For three very good reasons" Sheen replied as he ticked off the reasons on his fingers and tried to remain calm. "Because first, gauchos come from Argentina and llamas come from Peru. Second, there are no cows in space for the Galactic Gaucho to ride herd on. And third, it's a stupid idea!"

"Uh, hi guys," Jimmy interrupted before Carl could reply. "What's going on?"

"Sheen is maliciously pre-empting my self-validation by unjustly and arbitrarily stifling my creativity," Carl sulked as Jimmy slid into the booth.

Sheen stared at him. "What does that mean?"

Carl shrugged. "I don't know. It was in a lot of the notes that Miss Fowl sent to my mom."

"Was she pretty mad about those?" Sheen asked.

"Not really. She thought they were better than the other notes about the…" he lowered his voice to a whisper, "…accidents I used to have."

"So, guys," Jimmy interrupted again, "do you feel like having a discussion?"

"We were having a discussion," observed Sheen. "I was winning."

"What about, Jimmy?" asked Carl in an attempt to change the subject.

"Oh, I don't know," Jimmy answered, trying to sound nonchalant. "Just as a randomly selected topic without any prior thought or preparation, do either of you ever think about…girls?"

"Sure," Sheen replied.

"All the time," agreed Carl.

Jimmy was astonished and felt better. "Really?"

"Absolutely," said.Sheen. "I can't help but continually debate whether lizards or insects are the best way to get them to keep their distance."

"And I can't forget that all the girls in our class said they'd beat me senseless if I ever went into the girls' room again," Carl offered.

Sheen looked outraged. "What? That was over three years ago! And it wasn't your fault if the boys' room was full that day." He looked thoughtful. "That reminds me. Did they ever serve that casserole in the lunch room again?"

"Well –," Carl began.

"Guys!" Jimmy said quietly but urgently. "That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about…" He looked quickly around to make sure no one else was within earshot. "…about _affairs de coeur_."

Carl and Sheen looked blank. "Not following you, Jimmy," Sheen responded at last.

Jimmy tried again. "The gentle arts?" he hinted.

"You got me," answered Carl.

Being blunt seemed the only remaining option. "Girlfriends?"

Sheen's and Carl's faces both lit up. "Oh, that!" Sheen answered, then shook his head. "Nope."

"Never," agreed Carl.

Jimmy was outraged. "What do you mean, 'nope' and 'never'?" he demanded. "What about Beautiful Gorgeous?"

"Oh, come now, Jimmy," Sheen answered with great dignity. "Surely you realize that was merely a schoolboy infatuation."

"So you're saying that you're not interested in her anymore?" Jimmy asked hopefully.

"Of course I do. I'm still a schoolboy."

"And she's awful pretty," Carl volunteered. "Just like Jud – I mean, some other girl I know," he finished lamely.

"But…but…if you're both still infatuated with her," Jimmy stammered, "how is it that you don't think about her at all?"

Sheen thought about it. "I suppose," he said slowly, "that since she's never around I don't have much reason to really dwell on it."

"And I can think about your – I mean, about someone else," added Carl.

Jimmy seized on Sheen's clue. "But what about someone you like who is always around, like Libby?"

"Hmm…" Sheen pondered the idea. "Good question. I guess that comes down to a balanced mixture of self-discipline and self-preservation."

"Self-preservation?"

Sheen sighed. "She said that if I didn't stop bugging her that she'd knock my block off."

"She did?" Jimmy felt perplexed. As he understood it, girls supposedly wanted to be noticed and attract boys. But they threatened the boys who were attracted? Or was that just between Libby and Sheen? "Does she threaten other people, like Nick?"

"I don't know," Sheen answered with a shrug. "I don't pry into her private relationships." He paused for a moment and gingerly rubbed his arm as if remembering a painful injury. "Any more."

"Why don't you ask her, Jimmy?" Carl suggested pointing towards the door. "She's just coming in now with Cindy."

Jimmy froze. _Cindy?_ he thought in a panic. _I can't see her now. There's no telling what I might say to her!_ He gave a quick glance in the direction in which Carl was pointing and saw with some relief that neither girl seemed to be paying them any attention. But Cindy kept looking around her, almost as though she were worried about something. But worried about what? Jimmy had not spoken with her or even seen her since that morning. A cold chill ran down his spine as a possibility crept into his mind. Had she somehow learned of his feelings for her?

As for Cindy, she had seen but paid no heed to Jimmy, Carl, or Sheen as her mind was preoccupied with a more important matter. She felt that someone was still watching her, and she was almost sure it was the stranger from earlier that day even though she couldn't see him.

And unnoticed by either Jimmy or Cindy, Lou leaned casually against the wall in an obscure corner of the room, smiling contently. _Time for Phase 3_, he thought.

End of Part 5


	6. Part 6 First Steps

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 6:

"Well?" asked Libby as she and Cindy slid into a booth. "Do you see him here anywhere?"

Cindy looked nervously about. "No," she admitted.

"How about when we were walking here?"

Cindy shook her head, but was far from convinced. "I tell you I saw him here earlier. And he's around here somewhere. I can feel it. I've felt it ever since I noticed him this morning."

Libby nodded but looked skeptical. "I don't know, Cindy. Maybe this is something serious and you should tell your parents about it, but on the other hand maybe it's totally innocent. Maybe he was just someone who saw you and thought you were cute, but he was just too shy to saw anything. He could have followed you home just to see where you lived so he could send you a love letter or something."

"Maybe," Cindy said doubtfully. "It's just a weird coincidence that he should turn up at the same time as –" She suddenly broke off, uncertain how to continue. Libby looked puzzled.

"The same time as what?" asked Libby when Cindy didn't finish her sentence.

"The same time as…the shoe sale," Cindy offered weakly trying to laugh. She had almost said, "The same time as Lou", but the less she said about Lou the better. She would rather look like an idiot than go over with Libby her previous encounter with him.

Libby nodded slowly, her expression clearly indicating that she believed that Cindy was losing her mnd. "You know, girl, I think you'd better lay off the Purple Flurp for a while." She looked over at the booth where she had noticed Jimmy when they had first come in, wondering if maybe Jimmy could figure out what was going on. But Jimmy was no longer there.

Jimmy had taken advantage of Cindy's and Libby's conversation to make his way to the boys' room. "So far so good," he said, pacing nervously about. "All I have to do is wait for them to leave, and I'll be fine."

"Don't you mean, 'wait for her to leave'?" he heard a voice say.

Jimmy turned to see Lou standing before the mirror, carefully styling his hair with a long black comb. "What?"

"It' not them you're worried about, Jimmy," Lou replied, pocketing the comb. "It's her."

Jimmy felt his face redden and he began to sweat. "I don't know what you mean," he stammered, his hands twisting nervously.

"Yes, you do." Lou hopped up on the washstand and gave Jimmy a knowing smile. "You're just afraid to admit it. It's okay," he continued, interrupting Jimmy's protests. "It happens to everyone. You want something, but you're afraid to risk going for it because it might not work out and you might get hurt."

That made sense to Jimmy. "But why her?" he demanded. "Why not someone I knew I was attracted to, like Betty Quinlan? Or Sagebrush Sally? Or even Beautiful Gorgeous? It seems logical that if I were to be in love with anyone –"

Lou interrupted Jimmy with the sound of a game show buzzer. "Lesson Number One, Jimmy. Never use 'love' and 'logic' in the same sentence. They have nothing to do with each other."

"They don't?"

"No. At best people fall in love and then try to rationalize it, but not the other way around. Thinking and feeling are two different things. In your case you were thinking so much that your thoughts got in the way of your real feelings. When you shut down the rational side of your mind it finally let the feelings that were always there out. And now that you've amped up the emotive part of your mind it's time for you to act on your feelings."

"But – but _how_?" Jimmy sounded desperate.

"You're on your own there, Jimmy, so you'll have to play it by ear. But whatever you do, always be sincere and always listen. The two unforgivable sins with women are insincerity and being a jerk." He smiled and hopped off the washstand. "Got all that?"

"I think so," said Jimmy. "Be sincere and always listen. Don't be a jerk."

"Right. Good luck." Lou opened the door, passed through the doorway, and was gone. After taking a few minutes to collect his courage Jimmy left as well, and headed to the booth where Cindy and Libby were still sitting and apparently disagreeing about something. After pausing briefly near the jukebox and pretending to inspect the selections Jimmy steeled himself to the task and came up to their booth.

"Hi, girls," he greeted them with a smile. "How's it going?"

"Oh, hey, Jimmy," answered Libby looking up. "Not bad. Ot it wouldn't be if Cindy here would just put her problem aside for while and relax."

"Problem?" Jimmy asked, giving a concerned look. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Cindy looked surprised and a little suspicious. "Uh…no. Why do you ask?"

"Well, usually you're pretty good at handling things that come up. If it's really worrying you it must be something serious."

_Is this actually Neutron talking?_ thought Cindy. _This has got to be one of his practical jokes._ She carefully searched his face but had to admit to herself that his concern seemed genuine. "Well," she replied hesitantly, "it may be nothing, but…" She paused. It had seemed reasonable enough when she had told her story to Libby, but relating it now to Jimmy somehow made it all seem ridiculous. He'd probably just laugh at her, call her story a paranoid delusion, or worse.

"Go one," Jimmy urged, squatting down a little to get closer to her level.

His tone certainly seemed sincere. "Well…I think that maybe someone is following me." She braced herself for the caustic retort, but Jimmy only looked thoughtful. Encouraged, she continued, "I've only seen him once, but there's this feeling I have that he's been around somewhere, keeping an eye on me. He may just be some new kid in the neighborhood, but…" Her voice faded into silence.

Jimmy nodded. "But it might be more serious than that. I think you're right to be cautious. Better safe than sorry."

"What?" asked Cindy, pleasantly surprised.

"What?" echoed Libby, absolutely astonished.

"Maybe it is all harmless," Jimmy said firmly, "but then again it might not be. Until we're sure, I think that Cindy is wise to be concerned. In fact…" He hesitated and then went on in a rush, "Would you like me to walk you both home, just in case?" Both girls looked startled but before either could respond Jimmy quickly added, "If there is anything odd going on my being there might make a difference. If there isn't a problem, no harm done."

"Well…" Cindy hesitated and looked at Libby. "If it isn't any trouble…"

"No trouble at all. Libby?"

Libby shook her head. "Thanks, but I'm covered, Jimmy. Sheen was going to come by my place anyway to get his soundtrack CD from _Ultra Lord: The Movie_."

"What were you doing with that?" asked Cindy. "I thought you hated Ultra Lord."

"Hello? Buff guy in metal and spandex? Besides, there were some kicking jams from Hip Hopalong Cassidy on it that were great for my aerobics. In any case, you two can go on without me."

Cindy and Jimmy looked at each other, and something seemed to melt a little between them. "Okay, then," said Cindy, rising from her seat. "I guess I can go now."

"Fine by me," agreed Jimmy. He accompanied her to the door, held it open for her, and followed closely behind after she had exited. Behind them in his obscure corner Lou watched them depart, a pleased but cold smile thinning his lips. So far everything was going to plan.

On a corner across the street from the Candy Bar another pair of eyes watched the two young people as they departed. Lost in conversation neither Jimmy nor Cindy noticed the stranger as he pocketed his book, gave a quick look up and down the street, and began silently to follow them.

End of Part 6


	7. Part 7 Phase Three

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 7:

Jimmy and Cindy made idle conversation as they walked, unaware of the stranger following them. From time to time their hands would accidentally brush against each other and each time they would move slightly further apart and lapse into a brief and uncomfortable silence. After each incident, however, they would, by chance or design, invariably drift closer together again.

"Thanks for walking me home, Jimmy," Cindy said.

"That's all right," Jimmy replied. "I didn't want you taking any chances."

Cindy gave an embarrassed laugh. "Well, maybe I'm not. Libby seems to think it's all my imagination. But it's nice to know that…well…"

"That someone believes you, even if what you believe sounds a little crazy?"

"Exactly," Cindy nodded.

Jimmy sounded somber and a little sad. "I know the feeling."

Cindy looked quickly at Jimmy, wondering. He was looking down at the ground as he walked and was apparently lost in his thoughts. _And part of that is because of me_, she thought unhappily, remembering the velociball incident she had laughed at that morning. "Listen, Jimmy, I guess I owe you an apology."

That seemed to surprise Jimmy. "For what?" he asked.

"Well, I haven't always been as nice to you as I could have been. I'm sorry for a lot of the things I've said to you."

"That's okay," Jimmy answered and fell silent again. Cindy waited for a moment, wondering if Jimmy was going to say anything about some of the things he had said to her in the past. When nothing was forthcoming she decided to take the direct approach.

"What about you?" she asked, trying to sound as though the answer was of no great importance to her. "Are you sorry about any of the things you've said to me?"

Jimmy roused himself from his thoughts. "Oh. Yeah… except…"

_This is it_, Cindy told herself bitterly. _The part where he tells me he meant all of them and laughs because I apologized first._ She was so angry with herself for opening up that she nearly missed Jimmy's next words.

"Except that I'm more sorry for some of the things that I never said," he was saying.

"Like what?" she asked, still suspicious.

"Well," he said hesitantly, "like how I appreciate when you sometimes stick up for me when no one else does…and how I know that you sometimes give your empty Purple Flurp can to Goddard when you think no one's watching…and how I like the way your whole face lights up sometimes when you smile. Things like that." He shrugged. "That's all."

Once again their hands brushed and this time Cindy couldn't resist. She wrapped her hand around his, holding it gently but firmly in a soft embrace. For a second they paused and gazed at each other as they adjusted to this sudden change of events, each aware of new feelings and each uncertain whether they were the only one who felt them. Then, like the sun emerging through grey morning mists, smiles crossed their faces and they walked on in a communal silence that said more than any words they could speak.

"Oh my gosh!" cried Sheen "Look at that!"

"What?" asked Libby, turning to look at where Sheen was pointing in excitement. She gazed eagerly at the distant forms for a few seconds and then shrugged her shoulders in annoyed disappointment. "It's just Cindy and Jimmy."

"Yeah," Sheen agreed. "But look at what they're doing!"

Libby turned to look again, unsure of just what Sheen was getting at. "They're just walking," she said. "That's no big deal. Jimmy said that he would…hey, wait a minute. Are they…? Oh my goodness! They're…they're…" She stammered as her mind refused to accept what her eyes were reporting.

"They're holding hands!" Sheen looked around desperately, like a rat in a trap. "Did we get sucked into some parallel dimension? Have we fallen into that weird twilight place? Do you see Rod Serling anywhere?"

"I hope not," Libby answered, still watching Jimmy and Cindy. "He's been dead for years."

Sheen dropped to his knees in a begging position. "Please, Libby. Promise me that no matter what happens, no matter how bizarre things get, and no matter what else may change in our alternate lives here you won't forget Ultra Lord!"

"Relax, Sheen," Libby replied. "We're not in some strange new dimension."

"How can you be so sure?" Sheen answered on the verge of panic. "That's exactly what people would say in that zone place." He considered it. "Although maybe they'd say it backwards, or in a strange squeaky voice, or -"

"Sheen, focus! We aren't in the Twilight Zone."

"But how can you be _sure_?"

"Because things aren't all in black and white and we aren't wearing dorky clothes and hairstyles." She gave Sheen an appraising look. "Well, I'm not, anyway." She turned back to watch Jimmy and Cindy move further away. "But there is something odd about all this. Maybe we should follow and see what's going on."

"Okay," agreed Sheen, getting back to his feet. "But just in case," he went on suspiciously, "maybe we should hold hands too until I'm convinced that we're still in Retroville and you really are Libby."

In response Libby shoved Sheen hard, knocking him off his feet. He lay sprawled on the ground for a few moments as she glared at him with her fists planted on her hips.

"Okay, I'm convinced," he said.

Not long afterwards Cindy and Jimmy arrived in front of the Vortex residence, still hand in hand. "Well, we're here," Cindy announced, stating the obvious. "It looks like nothing happened."

"I wouldn't say that," Jimmy replied, causing Cindy to blush and look hastily away. "But I'm glad that stranger you were worried about didn't show up."

"Me too. Thanks again for walking me home. I felt a lot better. I mean, safer."

"Any time." Jimmy sounded hesitant. "Is there any place you need to go tomorrow?"

"Umm…no. There isn't, actually."

"Because if there is," Jimmy was rambling now, "I'd be happy to accompany you. I don't have anything scheduled, and –"

Cindy interrupted him. "Jimmy, really, I don't have plans to go anywhere." As Jimmy looked disappointed she added, "But if you don't have anything planned either, why don't you come over tomorrow afternoon and visit? We could, I don't know, listen to some music, or talk, or just hang out. Together."

"It's a date," Jimmy said quickly, looking pleased. "Well, not a date, really, but a social…visit…sort of…thing." He suddenly realized that he sounded just like his father. "Well, anyway, I'll be there. Here. Afternoon. Tomorrow. Together."

Cindy smiled, amused. "Right. Unless," she added mischievously, "it happens to rain."

"Rain?" Jimmy looked alarmed. "Is the forecast for rain? Maybe I can do something to change it. Let's see, if there's a cold front moving in I can…no, that's not right…maybe I can…" Jimmy was feeling flustered and was babbling now.

"Jimmy, I was just joking," Cindy reassured him. "It's not going to rain."

"Oh," Jimmy sighed with relief. "That's good. But just in case, if it does rain –"

Cindy stopped him. "Jimmy, go home," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay. Home. Right. Tomorrow. Well, good-bye." He waved and turned, heading across the street to his house looking back once or twice as he did so.

Cindy watched him go before she entered her house, smiling and shaking her head at the unusual turn of events. She seemed to have forgotten about Lou and the stranger that had so worried her all day and was already busy with plans for the next day_. Is it too early to watch a movie about meaningful relationships with him?_ she wondered, climbing the stairs to her room. _And should I serve the Purple Flurp in the cans or in iced glasses? Or maybe something like iced tea would be more appropriate…_

Unnoticed by either Cindy or Jimmy, Lou had been clandestinely observing them and was now carefully studying both their houses_. Enjoy it while you can, _he thought menacingly. _Tomorrow the game is over._ As he moved down the street laughing noiselessly to himself only the stranger, unnoticed by anyone, saw him go.

End of Part 7


	8. Part 8 Endgame

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 8:

The next morning Cindy was up and out early for her regular morning jog. Her usual course took her through and around her neighborhood, but this morning she felt in the mood for a real workout and decided to take a longer route past the school, through the park, and back through the shopping district. It was too early for any stores to be open, even if it hadn't been Sunday, but she was still thinking about the shoes she had seen on sale and thought that another look might help her decide whether or not to buy them for the dance. Plus, there were other things to think about.

As she jogged she thought about the Retroville Days dance. It was to be the following Saturday and thus far she had not yet asked anyone. While it was perfectly acceptable to go stag it would be a social _faux pas_ to actually do so, as it would imply that she had not been able to find anyone to go with her. She had considered asking Nick or Ernest to the dance but the events of yesterday had relegated those options to faint and distant possibilities. When Jimmy came by later she planned to invite him – casually, of course – and suggest that they perhaps have a few practice sessions. She knew that Jimmy could dance, but wasn't sure just how complete his repertoire was. In particular, she was interested to learn how adept he was at some of the slow dances. It would be –

"Hi, Cindy," a familiar yet unwelcome voice called.

She was in the park now and Cindy considered ignoring him and jogging past, but decided that if Lou really wanted to speak with her he would find ways to harass her until she finally acknowledged him. She stopped, let out a snort of disgust, and turned to face him. "What do you want, Lou?"

"A lot of things. But for the moment, just a little of your time." Lou stepped closer with that infuriatingly easy smile on his face and gestured with this thumb and forefinger. "Just a smidge."

Cindy didn't thaw one fraction of a degree. "Start talking."

Despite the chilly reception Lou's smile widened. "How are things with you and your new boyfriend?"

"None of your business," Cindy snapped, her eyes narrowing to slits. "Now if you don't mind -"

"I guess you're meeting him later today," Lou went on, circling her slowly like a shark homing in on its prey. "He's really looking forward to it. Do you know that he's already up, trying to decide whether or not to wear some of his dad's cologne when he comes over?" He shook his head. "Personally I think I should advise him not to. Hugh Neutron doesn't really have the best taste in fragrances."

Cindy gritted her teeth. "I'm warning you –"

"Actually, I'm warning you." Lou stopped his circling and put an arm around her shoulders, causing her to recoil in disgust at the touch. He pointed into the sky. "See that?" he whispered.

Despite herself Cindy looked up, but saw nothing but some early morning clouds and the blue sky. "No."

"Neither can anyone else. But I'll give you the four-one-one. It's a piece of dark matter. It's about the three hundred feet long and sixty feet across, about half the size of the Washington Monument but with a thousand times the mass." He voice took on a conspiratorial tone. "And it will reach downtown Retroville in about 13 hours."

Cindy shook off Lou's arm. "You're lying."

"Am I? I told you before – I'd never lie to you, Cindy."

Cindy felt a cold lump of fear like a piece of ice forming in the pit of her stomach. Already suspecting the answer she asked, "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I can do something about it – for a price."

Cindy shook her head. "Never."

"Never is such a long time," Lou replied amiably, and then his voice took on a hard edge. "I'm not asking for much, Cindy. Nothing more than what's rightfully mine. We had a deal. You signed the contract and I kept my end of it. And all I'm asking is that you honor yours."

"That contract was declared null and void," Cindy said hotly. "Jimmy proved that before a judge and jury that you picked yourself."

Lou seemed almost good-natured about that. "That was a mistake on my part, I admit. But I've made sure to eliminate that mistake this time."

Cindy didn't like the tone or implication of what Lou was saying. "What do you mean?"

"It seems," Lou answered in an unhurried, almost leisurely manner, "that poor Jimmy was feeling down about not being very popular with the ladies. I shared a few objective observations with him, and he saw fit to rectify the situation."

"What did you do?" hissed Cindy.

"Me? Nothing. Just as I promised you. Jimmy took it upon himself to balance out the rational and emotive sides of that remarkable brain of his. Well, maybe not so remarkable anymore. He's gained a whole new perspective and range of feelings, but I'm afraid he's lost a step or two in the thinking department." Lou's sinister chuckle made Cindy shiver. "He couldn't come up with a decent geometry proof, much less one of his vaunted brain blasts." He shook his head in mock sorrow. "No, I'm afraid that Retroville can't hope for any help from Mr. Neutron this time. But I really have to thank you for that. If you hadn't wiped his memory of our last meeting he would never have done it."

"You had this all planned," Cindy choked out, her voice shaking with rage and fear. "All the time."

"Well, I can't take credit for everything. There was another time that Jimmy sabotaged his brain when a meteor was headed for Retroville, and I confess that I copied that. But hey!" He grinned, clapped his hands, and spread them like an entertainer. "You can't beat the classics!"

Cindy suddenly felt dizzy and lost, and very nearly collapsed on the spot. Lou steadied her and guided her to a bench, where she sat down and tried to breathe normally. _What am I going to do?_ she thought in a daze. _Without Jimmy, what can I do?_

Lou watched her closely, seeming to read her thoughts. When she finally looked up at him he spoke very quietly and firmly. "Let's get down to cases, Cindy. The way I see it you have three options.

"Option 1. You do nothing. Maybe I'm lying and nothing happens. Or maybe I'm telling the truth and Retroville and everything for 100 miles around ends up as a new subdivision of Beijing.

"Option 2. You try to get Jimmy to help you again. But in his condition I doubt he could remember his locker combination, much less figure out how to stop something just short of an extinction level event.

"Or Option 3." Lou leaned very close to Cindy, his voice grating like granite as his dark gaze seemed to paralyze her very essence. "You do the right thing, stop this nonsense, and surrender your soul to me."

In the mists around her Cindy found the will to ask a question. "Why start up these feelings between me and Jimmy?" Her voice seemed to come from a great distance, as though she were somehow far away. "What do you get from that?"

"Jimmy got in my way," Lou answered reasonably. "I want him to feel it when you're gone. He and I are really quite alike, you know. We both hate to lose. And I want him to remember that I won every day for the rest of his life." He straightened up. "I can see that you want a few minutes to think things over. I'll give you a little time to consider the situation. Let me know when you're ready. But don't wait too long." He paused to let his words sink in. "The clock is ticking." With that he turned and walked away.

Cindy sat motionless, alone in a silent black void that surrounded her. She somehow believed that what Lou had told her about the dark matter meteor was the truth. Worse, she realized that by erasing Jimmy's memory from before that she was responsible for much of what was happening. And worst of all, there didn't appear to be any way out for her this time. And as for poor Jimmy…

__

Help me, she thought desperately to herself as the numbness left her and she gave way to great racking sobs. _Someone, please help me._

"Sounds like you have issues," she heard a voice say.

End of Part 8


	9. Part 9 Angelo

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 9:

As badly as Cindy was feeling about her situation she nevertheless looked up to see who had spoken. A faint feeling of amazement trickled through her brain when she saw that it was the unkempt stranger she had seen yesterday and had suspected was following her. Had he spoken to her before she had met Lou she would have been alarmed, but events of the past half hour had left her with nothing to lose and by extension nothing to fear. "Who are you?" she asked dully.

The stranger smiled, and when he smiled there was nothing sinister or threatening in his appearance whatsoever. "My name is kind of a long one but it usually shortens to De La Fe. You can call me Angelo." He extended a hand and Cindy shook it from force of habit. His grip was firm but gentle, and at the touch Cindy felt her spirits lift somewhat. "You must be Cynthia Vortex."

"Cindy," she automatically corrected him. No one ever called her Cynthia and she looked at him curiously. "Who are you?"

He laughed. "I already told you. But I think you have more serious things on your mind than who I am."

"Yes," Cindy nodded, and again felt a pall of depression settling over her.

Angelo took a seat next to her. "Don't be discouraged. I'm her to help you about Lou."

Cindy looked sharply at Angelo. "You know Lou?"

He nodded. "We're old acquaintances. You might say we're competitors covering the same territory."

"Why do you want to help me?"

Angelo shrugged. "You asked. Usually I don't get involved with this sort of thing directly, but there were some special circumstances with Lou this time and I decided to make an exception."

Cindy was perplexed. "What special circumstances?"

Angelo leaned back against the back of the bench and stretched his long legs out before him. "He broke the rules."

"Rules?" Cindy was more confused than ever. "What rules? Is this some kind of game?"

Angelo shook his head emphatically. "No. Not a game. Life and beyond are never a game. But Lou seems to have forgotten that. He's been playing fast and loose and this time he crossed the line."

"How?"

Angelo considered this for a moment before answering. "In the simplest terms he violated the conditions of double jeopardy. Maybe he could argue that this new offer to you was just a part of your original bargain, but he interfered with Jimmy's life when he'd already had his shot at him."

"But Jimmy doesn't remember any of that," Cindy pointed out.

"It doesn't matter. That's the thing about truth, Cindy. You can forget it, or ignore it, or even lose it, but you can't destroy it. That's the nature of truth. It's what is, and was, and will be, from everlasting to everlasting."

"So you're here to help because he broke the rules?"

"That's right."

Cindy leaned forward eagerly. "So what are you going to do?"

Angelo smiled. "I was just about to ask you the same thing."

Cindy stared at him, her mouth moving soundlessly for a few seconds before she finally got out, "But…you said you were here to help me!"

"So I did. And so I am. But helping you and doing it for you are two different things." Before she could ask him he gave her a somber look and said simply, "The rules. I'm afraid you're going to have to solve the problem."

Cindy shook her head. "But I can't beat Lou! I'm not as smart as he is!"

"Exactly." Angelo smiled.

"What?" Cindy couldn't believe what she had just heard. Was Angelo taunting her for some reason? Or was this all just one of Lou's elaborate hoaxes? "You're saying that I can beat him because he's smarter than me?"

"No." Angelo shook his head. "I'm saying that you can beat him because how smart he is doesn't matter."

"How can that be? I don't understand."

"Most people don't at first. In simplest terms, Cindy, the battles are fought here." Angelo tapped his forehead, and then his chest. "But they're won here. Jimmy doesn't win because of his brain. He wins because of his heart. Lou had you dead to rights the last time because he was smart, but Jimmy won because he understands what it means to feel and knew that the judge and jury did too. Even now Lou thinks that he lost the last time because Jimmy outsmarted him, and that's why he arranged to neutralize Jimmy's intelligence. He thinks that the heart is a weakness and won't ever believe that it can ever be a threat. Human feeling is one of the great gifts people have to beat Lou."

"And the other?"

"Free will. Choice. The ability to decide one's own destiny, for good or evil. Lou doesn't have a choice anymore. He lost his power to choose long ago. He plans everything to the last logical detail and prepares for every contingency that reason tells him could arise, but free will is the wild card he can't anticipate or plan for."

Cindy nodded slowly. "So there is a way to beat him? I just need to figure out what it is?"

Angelo gave her another smile. "I'm only advising you to go with your strengths. Lou told you that he wouldn't lie to you and what he said is how he really believes things to be. But there truly is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in his philosophy."

"You seem to know a lot about Lou," Cindy commented thoughtfully.

"You're very quick." Angelo noted. "Yes, Lou and I go back a long time. He is smart. Very smart. But somewhere along the way he missed out on something important. He couldn't say even to himself what's missing in his existence. All he knows is that he's empty." He gave Cindy a very long and discomforting look. "That can happen to a lot of smart people. Even the smartest."

"You mean Jimmy?"

Angelo nodded. "Jimmy understands that with great power comes great responsibility. He takes that very seriously. He's come through for this town and even this world more times that even you might suspect. And each time he's understood and accepted the risks he takes."

Cindy sensed that there was a something hidden behind the words that Angelo was telling her. _Almost_, she thought, _like a warnin_g. "Is there a risk this time? One that he doesn't understand?"

Angelo nodded slowly. "He could lose everything this time."

"But there's a chance he won't?"

Angelo stood up, preparing to go. "That will depend on you." He shaded his eyes and looked into the sky as though trying to divine the time from the position of the sun in the heavens. Then he looked back at Cindy, his face solemn. "Good luck, Cindy. As Lou said, the clock is ticking." He suddenly smiled. "But remember what I told you, as well."

"What's that?" asked Cindy, trying to remember everything Angelo had told her.

"Lou doesn't know everything."

End of Part 9

Author's Notes:

As many surmised the stranger following Cindy was in fact someone on a mission to help her against Lou. Hopefully this doesn't mean that my stories are becoming too predictable, although it's nice to know that they make enough sense for people to figure out which way they're going.


	10. Part 10 The Third Option

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 10:

Cindy headed home, walking slowly, deep in thought. Only 12 hours remained before the meteor that Lou had told her about would strike, and Angelo had convinced her that Lou was not bluffing and the danger was very real. Cindy didn't know much about dark matter, but she knew that it was essentially invisible – hence the name. Only its intense gravitational field would give it away as its passing subtly altered the motions of other objects in and near its path. But unless someone was looking no one would sense its approach until it was far too late, and she was sure that no one was looking. She wasn't even sure that the observers watching for NEOs, or near-Earth objects, had the right equipment to detect what had to be detected. Only the deep space sensors in Jimmy's lab had a chance of finding the unseen killer on way to it deadly rendezvous.

But even if they spotted it, how could Jimmy possibly stop it? It was the fabled irresistible force moving towards the legendary immovable object. Could Jimmy stop something with the momentum of a supersonic mountain? Or literally move a planet out of the way? Could one of his brain blasts do even _that_?

Another thought that disturbed Cindy was whether Jimmy could even generate a brain blast. Lou had seemed convinced that he could not, and yesterday Jimmy had seemed to babble when he tried to recall the circumstances that created rain. Now, Cindy was convinced, Jimmy had been struggling to utilize the reasoning part his mind. Lou knew that by convincing Jimmy to balance out the two sides of his mind that he would neutralize the intelligence that could save them.

_But Lou doesn't know everything._

Heart and free will, Angelo had told her, were the two great gifts that could beat Lou. So how to do it?

Lou had said she had three options. The first was to do nothing, but that was clearly not a choice. The meteor was on its way and something had to be done. The third option, to give in to Lou, was equally unacceptable. That left only the second option, which was to get Jimmy to help somehow. In his present state he might not be able to do anything about the meteor, but maybe… A thought occurred to her, almost astonishing in its simplicity. Maybe he could still reverse the process and return to normal, or whatever normal was for a boy with an IQ over 200. It has saved the town before and, as Lou had said, you can't beat the classics.

She suddenly became aware that she had walked several streets past her and Jimmy's block. Encouraged by the possible solution to her current dilemma she ran the entire way back to Jimmy's house and rang the doorbell. Ordinarily she would have stopped to bathe first, but there was no time for that. There was no telling how long finding a solution to the meteor might take. Jimmy's father answered the door.

"Well, hello, Cindy," he said pleasantly. "Are you selling more candy?"

"No, Mr. Neutron," Cindy answered, somewhat out of breath. "I –"

"It's not pie, is it? I'd be happy to buy some pie from you, especially if it's for a good cause like…umm…what cause are you selling pie for?"

"I'm not selling anything, Mr. Neutron. I just need to speak with Jimmy."

"Oh, I see," Hugh said, sounding disappointed. "Well, maybe Sugar Booger has another one baked by now. You can't get enough pie, you know. Come on in and I'll call Jimmy down. He should be finished with his third bath by now." He led Cindy into the living room, calling, "Oh, Jimmy! There's someone here to see you, son! And she's not selling candy or pie."

Jimmy appeared, scrubbed within an inch of his life, his hair neatly combed, and virtually reeking of dubious cologne. _He does clean up pretty good_, thought Cindy, _but I have to admit Lou was right about his Dad's judgement of fragrances._ Jimmy looked both flustered and pleased to see her.

"Hey, Cindy," he said. "I'm sorry. Did I get the time wrong? I thought that I was coming over this afternoon, but –"

Cindy cut him short. "I need to talk with you, Jimmy. Uh…" She looked at Jimmy's father.

Jimmy caught the hint. "Dad? Could you give us a moment?"

Hugh looked momentarily confused, but then seemed to catch on. "Gotcha, son," he said, leaning towards Jimmy and giving him a broad wink. "I was young once, too, you know. You don't have to draw me a picture." He walked away, still talking. "Unless it's pie or ducks. I can never get enough pictures of those. Or real pie or ducks are even better…" His voice gradually faded away as he moved to another part of the house..

Jimmy covered his face with his hand, totally embarrassed. "I'm sorry about that. Sometime parents can be so –"

Cindy interrupted him. "That's not important right now," she said. "There's a problem. A big one."

"It's not the stranger who's been following you, is it?" Jimmy asked, his voice filled with concern.

Despite the circumstances Cindy was touched by this demonstration that Jimmy really cared. _How sweet_, she thought, but then forced her mind back to the matter at hand. "No, it's not that. But thanks for asking. Jimmy, do you remember what dark matter is?"

"Uh…" Jimmy thought, his brow furrowed in concentration as he struggled to remember. "It's something like…no…wait…I can get this…really…just give me a moment…or two…"

Cindy watched Jimmy's inner struggle and her heart sank. "Never mind, Jimmy," she said gently. "We can get back to that later. 'What's more important is what happened yesterday."

Jimmy thought back. "Yesterday? Well, I remember walking home with you and talking." He looked up hopefully. "Was that it?" Cindy shook her head and Jimmy continued to think. Finally he shook his head. "I can't remember much else. It's like nothing else mattered enough to remember."

Cindy groaned to herself, and then had an idea. "Wait a minute! Goddard!"

"What about Goddard?"

"He might have some record of it. Could you call him here? Maybe he can get you to remember."

Jimmy nodded, looking confused. "Well…all right. Goddard! Here boy!" Seconds later they heard Goddard's footsteps in the upstairs hall, followed by Goddard himself coming down the stairs. He stopped in front of Jimmy, his tongue lolling out as Jimmy scratched his metallic head. "Hi Goddard! Are you a good boy?"

"Ask him about yesterday," Cindy said impatiently. "About changing your brain."

"Okay," Jimmy agreed. "Goddard! Replay anything about…" He looked at Cindy with a startled look on his face. "Changing my brain?"

"Just watch."

Goddard had opened his front hatch, exposing his video screen and showing the recorded events in Jimmy's lab from the previous day. Jimmy watched perplexed and disbelieving as he constructed the cerebral rebalancer, while Cindy listened dumbfounded to Jimmy's reflections on his life and relationships. When the recording ended with Jimmy waking from his transformation they both stood in silence, thinking about what they had just watched. At last Jimmy spoke.

"That was me?" he asked, not quite believing it.

Cindy nodded. "Can you fix the helmet to change things back to how they were?"

Jimmy thought. "I don't know. There wasn't much detail on what I was actually doing and I'm not sure I even remember how to use the tools or even how the circuits work." He looked down at the floor. "It's like…it's like it was someone else doing it all."

"Jimmy…" Jimmy looked up and saw the desperation in Cindy's face. "Jimmy, there's a meteor headed for Retroville. In less than 12 hours it's going to hit and wipe out everyone. You're the only one who can stop it. We need you back the way you were."

Jimmy looked miserably at her. "But I like the way I am now. Don't you?"

That was something Cindy hadn't thought about. If Jimmy managed to reverse the process and returned to how he had been, what would happen with them? But if he didn't, what would happen to Retroville? Or was the third choice really her only option? She sank down on the sofa, feeling lost once again. Jimmy couldn't miss the look of hopelessness on her face.

"What's the matter? Is there something you're not telling me?"

"Just that there is another way," she said, speaking slowly so her voice wouldn't break. "It has to do with Lou." Cindy's thought churned slowly through her choices. Either way she would lose this Jimmy, but at least this way he could stay the way he wanted to be. Angelo had said that Jimmy could lose everything, but that it would be up to her. This must have been what he had meant. For Jimmy's happiness she would have to agree to Lou's terms. "I have to go, now Jimmy. I'll see you –" She broke off, realizing that she would not be seeing him again. "Take care, okay?" She stood and headed for the door.

Jimmy watched her go, not fully understanding what was happening. But some sense deeper than sight and stronger than reason told him that Cindy was about to do something desperate. All he could remember of the past day was that he'd been happy, and he knew that he didn't want to lose that happiness. But he knew also that whatever Cindy was planning had to be avoided at any cost. For her sake he had to find a way back. It was a question of his happiness or hers, and the choice would always be obvious.

He was still Jimmy Neutron.

For all Lou's subtlety and guile Jimmy's essence was a divine spark, a gift beyond Lou's comprehension and something he could never hope to touch.

He would do what was right.

It was who he was. It was what he did.

For an interminable second Jimmy teetered between who he was and who he wanted to be, as thoughts and feeling battled for control. Then, with a cry of torment from the confused turmoil in his mind, he collapsed and fell into welcome unconsciousness.

End of Part 10


	11. Part 11 Mind and Matter

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 11:

"Jimmy?"

The word seeped through layers of ebon fog, like the mournful call of a distant seabird. The word was significant somehow, a link to a forgotten yet vitally important existence. Sluggishly he moved towards the sound, knowing only that he had to reach the source without fully understanding why.

"Can you hear me?"

The sound was growing clearer and sounded familiar and something inside him identified it as a voice. But whose voice? A voice had to belong to someone and he felt faint pride at having reasoned this out. He was vaguely aware that certain parts of him that had been dormant for an indeterminate amount of time were slowly awakening again.

"Would you like some pie, son?"

"Pi," he murmured. "Transcendental number without resolution….equal to…three…point…one…four…one…five…nine...two…six…five…three…five…eight…nine…"

"He sounds normal," said the voice that had called him 'son'.

He was suddenly aware that he had eyes and hesitantly opened them. A shiny metallic face came into view and he had to think for a second before he could place it. "Goddard?"

Goddard barked happily and a second face appeared next to his. "Jimmy?"

"Cindy?" Jimmy made a Herculean effort and sat up. "What happened? Where am I?" Next to Cindy and Goddard was his father, who was holding a half-eaten slab of pie and looking concerned.

"Well," replied Cindy, dropping a broad hint, "as I told your dad here you must have skipped breakfast, felt a little light-headed, and fainted."

As groggy as he felt Jimmy caught the hint. "Oh. Right. With all the showers I must have forgotten to eat. I guess it's nothing. Sorry to worry you all."

Hugh looked relieved and took another bite of pie. "Well, I suppose you can't get hurt if nothing's there," he commented. "Although I guess in this case having nothing for breakfast did. Did you want some pie to tide you over until lunch? It's walnut caramel."

"No thanks, Dad. I'm okay now."

"Well, okay, then. I'll see you later." Satisfied that all was well, Hugh walked towards the kitchen, calling, "Oh, Pumpkin Pants! Do we have any ice cream? Preferably French vanilla, although I suppose regular vanilla would be all right. It's just that it's so…vanilla."

Once his father was gone Jimmy looked at Cindy. "Are you okay?"

"I was going to ask you the same," Cindy replied, looking apprehensive. "I heard you cry out and when I turned around you'd already collapsed. What happened?"

"I…I don't know," Jimmy admitted. "It's like there were suddenly a million thoughts and ideas in my head that I couldn't keep up with. I must have blacked out. I remember something was wrong and that you were leaving…that I couldn't let you go...some terrible danger…"

"Yes," Cindy admitted. "I don't want to go. But with the meteor…and your brain not working…I'm afraid that –" She broke off and looked curiously at Jimmy. "Wait a minute. Did you just give the value of pi to twelve decimal places?"

"I suppose I did," he answered, thinking back.

"Are those all that you memorized? Or can you remember any more of the digits?"

Jimmy laughed scornfully. "Why memorize? For irrational numbers it's so much more convenient to memorize the appropriate infinite series expansion and evaluate it to the desired degree of precision."

"Jimmy! I think…I think you're back again!" Cindy leaped forward joyfully, catching Jimmy in an exuberant embrace. "This is wonderful!"

Jimmy shifted uncomfortably, painfully aware that he was not certain how to react. "Uh…yeah. I guess."

Cindy was too excited to notice his discomfort. "Do you remember about the meteor?"

"The meteor? Yes…you said something about a piece of dark matter heading towards Retroville and that there was only about twelve hours left before impact."

"That's right. Can you stop it?"

"There's only one way to find out." Jimmy headed to towards the back door. "Let's get to the lab and see what we're up against." Cindy followed him, a great sense of relief settling over her. Now that Jimmy was back she was certain that he would find some way to avert the catastrophe. Already he was showing the signs of confident determination, bordering on cockiness, which she had become accustomed to. Once in the lab Jimmy activated his deep space sensors and began systematically checking the current trajectories of various bodies against their predicted and cataloged orbits.

"Well?" asked Cindy last. The suspense was killing her.

"Patience," Jimmy replied absently. Based upon the orbital and rotational position of the Earth in twelve hours and a predicted impact point of Retroville the meteor should be coming in from the region somewhere near the Coal Sack. But so far…" He stopped and looked more closely at the screen. "Aha! There it is!"

Cindy stared at the confusion of lines and celestial points. "Where?"

"Well, not it, exactly," Jimmy confessed. "But look here." He pointed with his finger at a string of ever-widening traces. "These lines are the predicted paths of various asteroids, deep space probes, and some of the smaller debris beyond the orbit of the moon. And these lines are the actual paths. You can see that there's a difference because something has altered them slightly. As we go further out…" He moved his finger to demonstrate. "…you can see that the deviations increase. That's because the disturbance happened earlier, giving the trajectories more time to spread out."

"Like the wake behind a boat," Cindy commented. "Or the contrail of a plane."

"Exactly!" said Jimmy. "Lou was telling the truth. Something is coming in and pretty fast. And now that we have the trail, we can use it to extrapolate its heading and find out where it is and just how serious it is."

"Lou said it was about half the size of the Washington monument," Cindy offered helpfully.

"In size, maybe," Jimmy replied as he manipulated various controls. "But that doesn't tell us anything about the density or mass. If it was made of cotton candy there'd be no problem. But he said it was dark matter which means that it's going to be pretty scary stuff." He tapped a few final keys on his keyboard. "Okay. By using some of the COMSAT and NAVSAT channels I should have the sensors targeted on the meteor. Let's see what we've got."

"But it's dark matter. How can you see it?"

"Fortunately the sky has a fairly steady stream of background noise coming in – ultraviolet light, 21 centimeter electromagnetic radiation, and so forth. The meteor will block that, kind of like someone in a dark room stepping in front of a brightly-lit window. We won't get any details, but we should see be able to see the silhouette and get a good idea of just what's coming in." He touched a button and looked up at the monitor.

Cindy looked up also and saw a ghostly image materializing on the screen, wavering and shaking for a moment before stabilizing. Once locked in the monitor revealed a faint violet expanse with a single jet-black object tumbling lazily in silence before it. Although the image appeared fairly small Cindy sensed that it was very large, inconceivably massive, and travelling far faster than any earthly vehicle.

While Cindy gazed at the ominous shape on the monitor Jimmy was occupied with taking readings, issuing quiet orders to Vox, and running calculations and checks on the calculations. When he was done he leaned back with a low whistle. The whistle drew Cindy's attention away from the screen and back to Jimmy and his expression cause her heart to sink. "Well?" she asked, clinging to a faint ray of hope.

"It's definitely going to hit Retroville in…" He glanced at the monitor where a timer was counting down. "…eleven hours and twenty-three minutes. But it's a lot more massive than I thought. Even a near miss would rip away enough of the atmosphere to devastate most of the Earth's surface." He looked bleakly up at Cindy.

Cindy closed her eyes, as though hoping that doing so would block her hearing as well as her vision, but Jimmy's quiet voice sounded like a judge pronouncing her death sentence.

"I can't stop it."

End of Part 11


	12. Part 12 Choices

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 12:

Despite Jimmy's grim announcement Cindy was not willing to relinquish her new-found hope so readily. Desperately she began offering possible solutions.

"Maybe you could blow it up, or disintegrate it."

Jimmy shook his head. "It would be like trying to knock down a brick wall with water balloons. I don't have anything that would work against something that dense. Stupid nuclear regulatory agencies," he muttered to himself.

"Well," Cindy tried again, "how about shrinking it?"

"That wouldn't affect the mass. Trying to shrink it might even create a singularity. It would be like the Tunguska explosion of 1908 all over again."

"You used your magnetic plates before to stop a meteor. Maybe –"

"Dark matter has no magnetic properties to speak of. There'd be nothing for the magnetic field to push against."

Cindy was running out of options but struggled gamely on. "Couldn't you teleport it?"

"There wouldn't be any way to fit it into the telepod. And teleporting that much matter would take a lot more energy than I could generate even if it did fit." Jimmy looked beaten. "There's no way for me to stop it, divert it, or destroy it. So what's left?"

Cindy, try as she might, couldn't think of anything either and seemed close to tears. "Only one thing, I guess. We've…you've tried everything else."

Jimmy said nothing but Cindy's words tormented him. He hadn't actually tried everything yet. Although he had done his best to rationally analyze the situation he hadn't tried generating a brain blast. One reason was that he wasn't sure that his mental faculties were really back to normal, although he felt fine. He had always feared that if he weren't a genius he would be nobody. If he tried a brain blast and it didn't work he would be forced to admit that what had made him special was no longer there. More even than the prospect of imminent annihilation the possibility of that failure terrified him, and he was reluctant to admit that to Cindy.

The other reason was something he would barely admit even to himself and could never bring himself to tell Cindy. Even though his mind and personality were back to normal he still remembered how he had felt when the rational part of him mind had been deactivated, allowing his emotions to come through unhindered. If he was able to invoke a brain blast he would be back to the way he had always been. What there had been between him and Cindy would be over, and a part of him didn't want that to happen. But if he did nothing some unknown menace lay waiting for Cindy. A look at her face confirmed that the fear of something worse than the meteor haunted her.

Was he afraid of failing?

Or of succeeding?

The choice before him was obvious.

_All right, then_, Jimmy told himself. _If this is the way it has to be, then so be it. Think. Think! Think!_

Well, I suppose you can't get hurt if nothing's there…

In some situations you just have to go through the problem…

The transphasal generator creates a field that causes anything in front of it to temporarily phase into another dimension…

"Brain blast!" Jimmy cried. "We can't stop the meteor, or turn it aside, or destroy it. So we do the only thing we can do."

"What's that?" Cindy asked. She had had her hopes up so many times in the past hour or so that it was hard for her to sound optimistic.

"We let it go right through the Earth!"

Cindy stared at Jimmy, wondering whether the strain had caused him to go insane. Or perhaps she was the one who had lost her mind. Maybe both of them had. "How's that? When the meteor hits –"

"It won't. Look." Jimmy picked up his velociball that was lying on the workbench. "My velociball incorporates a transphasal generator. The generator creates a field in front of the ball that shifts the air in front of it into another dimension, letting the ball pass right through it. If I mount the generator to the Strato XL, I can shift the meteor in the other dimension and allow it to pass right through the Earth without any harm."

Cindy was now hopeful but still skeptical. "But how much power would that take? And what about your rocket ship?"

Jimmy did some quick thinking as he hastily scribbled some diagrams and figures on his chalkboard. "A roughly cylindrical shape 300 feet long and 60 feet across would be about 850,000 cubic feet. The transphasal generator uses about 250 kilojoules to create a transphased volume of about one cubic foot, so allowing for a safe distance and the added volume for the Strato XL that comes to just over 300 gigajoules. At the rate it's travelling I'd need to sustain the field for about hour to keep it safely out of the atmosphere, which comes to a total of about 83 megawatts." He put down the chalk and dusted off his hands. "One of my energy cells will be more than enough."

Cindy still looked dubious. "How can you have enough energy to phase this meteor into another dimension but not have enough to turn it aside?"

Jimmy smiled. "Two reasons, actually. You've studied martial arts so you should know that it takes far less energy to slip an attack than to stop it or deflect it. We're just letting the meteor proceed on its merry way. The second reason is that the transphasal generator doesn't actually phase matter. The generator simply creates a field with a fixed volume regardless of the amount of matter contained in that volume, which means that the mass of the meteor is irrelevant. The matter is shifted indirectly into the other dimension because it's contained in the volume, which is why it's called transphasing instead of phasing."

"Are you…are you sure?" Cindy asked, hardly daring to believe it. "I mean, are you certain that this will work?"

Jimmy looked over his scribblings and verified his calculations. "The calculations are straightforward. I just need to adapt the generator to handle the power, charge up an energy cell, modify the rocket ship, and program Goddard to assist me during the operation." He looked back at Cindy. "What could go wrong?"

"Program Goddard? What for?"

Jimmy hadn't really wanted to discuss this, but felt he didn't have any choice. "I'll need him to monitor some of the equipment to make sure that the meteor is staying within the field. If the ship gets too far ahead the meteor will instantaneously rematerialize in our dimension and…well…" Jimmy paused. "It would be bad. On the other hand, if the Strato XL gets too close the gravitational pull of the dark matter could…" Again Jimmy paused. "Well, that would be bad, too." He sighed. "I don't have time to set up the Strato XL controls to do it alone, so I have to take Goddard along."

"Wrong, Neutron."

"Wrong?" Jimmy looked puzzled. "What do you mean, wrong?"

Now that Jimmy had done his part, Cindy knew that she had to do hers. "I mean I'm going with you."

End of Part 12


	13. Part 13 Race to Space

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 13:

One of Jimmy's long-term projects had been to identify the most immutable substance in the known universe, as a number of his inventions required a material that would resist all manner of forces and pressures. To date he had narrowed the choices to a half-dozen ceramic and synthetic carbide derivatives, but after five minutes arguing with Cindy he concluded that the real answer was a woman who had made up her mind.

"You are not going," he had argued. "It's too dangerous."

"Oh, and waiting for a piece of dark matter to hit Retroville isn't?" had been her retort.

"If anything goes wrong, you could die. I don't want to have that on my conscience."

"Hey, if anything happened to me it would happen to you, too, so I doubt that's a big concern. And do you think it would be any easier for me if I stayed behind and something happened to you? I'm going and that's it."

For every logical argument Jimmy put forth Cindy had a semi-logical argument to counter it and in the end Jimmy relented. There was a lot of work to be done in preparing for the upcoming mission, and giving in to Cindy gave Jimmy two definite advantages. The first was allowing him to proceed with his plan, and the second was having an extra set of hands to do so. Cindy wasn't technician enough to do much independently, but she was able to hand Jimmy the necessary tools as he needed them and help assemble the parts he needed for the work. From time to time she would question Jimmy about his plan.

"Won't there be problems going into another dimension?" she asked, handing him a wrench. "What if we hit something already in there?"

"Not likely," he replied as he worked within the bowels of the Strato XL. "We're just going to be travelling outside the three-dimensional space we normally occupy, not phasing into an alternate reality. Ultrasonic welder, please. The thing that looks like an electric toothbrush."

Cindy complied with the request. "What's the difference?"

"An ultrasonic welder induces high frequency vibrations in adjoining materials which causes them to heat them up and weld together, while an electric toothbrush –"

"No, no! I mean between phasing into another dimension and phasing into an alternate reality."

"Oh, that." There was a faint hum as Jimmy took a few seconds to weld a seam. "It's pretty easy to confuse the two. The fact is that every existence has an infinite number of dimensions, but we're used to experiencing only three. We're going to slip sideways along one of the other axes, kind of peeling a sticker off a paper backing. We'll still take up three dimensions, but we'll be displaced along a fourth dimension and no longer in contact with everything else here. Alternate realities all occupy the same dimensions, but oscillate at a different fundamental quantum frequency that keeps them separate. It's kind of like all the different cable channels in a single cable."

"Oh. I see. I guess." Cindy wasn't sure she got the concept but decided that if Jimmy felt there was no danger she'd accept that. As Jimmy crawled back out of the rocket ship she asked, "Now, why do we need oxygen tanks and a canopy?"

Jimmy dusted off his pants as he explained. "Because there won't be any other transphased air where we're going. The volume of the tanks that I have are limited, so we're going to have carry pure oxygen and have to be very careful about regulating it." He pointed into the cockpit. "Those two valves – one in front and one in back – will control how much oxygen we're getting. There's no time to put in an automatic regulatory system, so we'll have to adjust them manually to make sure we don't get too much or too little."

"Uh-huh. But why didn't we ever need this stuff when we've gone into the vacuum of space before?"

"Well," Jimmy replied as he began organizing a number of multicolored wires into a harness, "as I explained to Carl and Sheen…"

_"Oh, we went to the moon,_

But it wasn't in June.

I wanted to croon,

So I sang a short tune –"

"Carl!" Sheen shouted. "Stop singing!"

"Oh. Sorry," Carl apologized. He and Sheen were in Carl's room playing Llama's Day Out.and Sheen had stopped in mid-move to glare at him.

"What's the matter with you?" Sheen demanded. "Why are you singing?"

"I don't know." Carl shrugged. "I was just thinking about the time you and Jimmy and me went to the moon to save Brobot from the Moony Men and I just felt like singing."

Carl's answer failed to placate Sheen. "Well, the Moony Men were all just a trick of Brobot's and we nearly got killed by the Junkman."

"Yeah," agreed Carl. "But Mombot's refreshments were really good."

"That's true," Sheen admitted. "But we don't have any. So knock off the singing!"

"…and that's pretty much it," Jimmy concluded back in his lab.

"That makes sense," Cindy nodded. "So are we about finished?"

"Pretty much. Let me familiarize you with what you need to do." Cindy craned to her neck to see the various instruments and controls in what was to be her section of the cockpit. "This is the oxygen regulator valve. Turn it clockwise to increase the flow, and counter-clockwise to decrease it. This button is for launching the backlight flare. This screen is a broad spectrum radiation monitor that will let you view the backlit meteor after the flare is fired and allow you to target the gravimetric sensor so that you can calibrate the reading. The flare only lasts a few seconds so you'll have to be fast." Jimmy looked at Cindy. "Do you think you can do that?"

"No problem," Cindy answered.

"Okay. Once the sensor is calibrated this meter will show the relative strength of the gravity field. If the reading increases we're drifting too close and need to speed up. If it decreases we're pulling ahead and need to slow down. I have a duplicate meter on my instrument panel but will need to be watching a lot of other instruments to keep us on course. If you see your meter moving into the red zone on either side, let me know immediately so I can adjust our speed. If I don't the meteor will drift outside of the field and…well…you know."

"I know. I will." Now that the moment of departure was at hand a wave of uncertainty swept over Cindy. "I guess this is it."

"I guess so." Jimmy was silent as he studied Cindy's face. "Are you sure you want to do this? Goddard –"

"I'm sure." Despite her nervousness Cindy's voice disguised it well and carried the weight of conviction. "Let's do this."

Without further conversation the two climbed into the rocket and took a few minutes to fasten and adjust their safety harnesses and go over the preflight checklist. The checklist was rather short, as Jimmy's rocket design followed the classic "keep it simple" philosophy of video game rocket control.

"Canopy closed and locked," Cindy recited.

"Check," Jimmy acknowledged and the clear bubble lowered over them.

"Silo hatch open."

The roof of Jimmy's clubhouse slid back. "Check."

"Launch track elevated."

The rocket angled back. "Check."

"Atomic batteries to power."

There were several clicks and a low hum and powerful relays closed and high energy began coursing through complex circuits. "Check."

"Turbines to speed."

An audible whine increased in volume and frequency. "Check."

"We are go for launch."

"Acknowledged. Commencing countdown. Launch in five…"

__

This is it, Cindy thought.

"Four…"

__

There's no turning back now.

"Three…"

__

I hope Jimmy really is back…

"Two…"

__

…or this is going to be one short ride.

"One..."

__

Wish me luck, Angelo.

"Blast off!"

With a subdued roar that was more of a prolonged _whoosh_ than the blast of a rocket the colorful ship shot upward into the night sky and was quickly lost amidst the glittering pinpoints of light overhead.

End of Part 13

Author's Note:

An observant reader noted the problems that the meteor could cause should the dimension into which Jimmy transphased it was occupied by an alternate reality. While I had originally intended Jimmy to devote only a sentence or two on the subject I decided that a slightly longer explanation was warranted. I could actually spend pages on the subject but decided that it wasn't really crucial to the central plot of the story and that the tale was getting to be long enough already. Considering what I know is to come I really can't rush things, but rest assured that things will reach a crisis next chapter.


	14. Part 14 The Cold Equations

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 14:

It was night when Jimmy and Cindy lifted off, but even so Cindy could tell when they passed beyond the limits of the atmosphere and into space. Even on the clearest nights the stars she could see at home couldn't compare in either number or brilliance to the display that surrounded them. Another difference was that the stars and planets scattered across the inky heavens didn't twinkle, and seemed just within reach. If their mission hadn't been so critical Cindy would have thoroughly enjoyed the experience of spaceflight.

Jimmy's voice over the intercom cut into her thoughts. "How are you doing back there?" he asked.

"Fine," she replied. The intercom had been a necessity, as the materials available to Jimmy in his lab had been limited and the ship's airtight canopy had separated the cockpit into two sections, putting each of them had a separate sealed compartment. "Are you sure you can locate the meteor?"

"No problems," Jimmy's voice crackled back. "In space once all the perturbing influences on an unpowered body are known the trajectory is quite simple to calculate because nothing will change. We should rendezvous in about three minutes. After that the real work begins. But it will be simpler because once out of Earth's gravity well the meteor's speed should be constant. How's the temperature?"

"A little cool, but tolerable."

"It will get colder. I couldn't insulate the ship very well and the heating unit can't put out much. Most of the warmth will come from the engines."

Cindy nodded, more to herself than for Jimmy who could not see her without turning around. With nothing better to do she looked at her watch to pass the time and found that three minutes was a lot longer than she would have expected. Several times she looked out the window for what she believed to be a minute, but when she looked back at her timepiece only a mere twenty or thirty seconds had passed. But as slowly as time seemed to crawl by for her it did pass, and as the three-minute mark approached she heard Jimmy call her.

"We're coming up on it. The gravimetric readings are increasing and you should be able to get a visual on your screen."

Cindy reproached herself for not paying attention to her instruments. "I know," she fibbed. "I'm scanning now." Sure enough the needle on her meter was slowly moving to the right, and she could see, or thought she could see, a small dot of black against the purple background of her viewscreen. As she watched the dot it slowly enlarged and grew into the unmistakably ominous shape she had seen in Jimmy's lab. "I have a visual," she announced crisply. "It's off about ten points to starboard and approaching fast."

"Roger that," Jimmy replied. "I've set the meter to hit midscale when we're at an optimum distance from the meteor. Once we reach that point I'll activate the transphasal generator and we'll take the meteor in. I mean, through. Stand by on the backlight flare and prepare for calibration."

"Copy that." Cindy moved her hands over the controls as Jimmy performed the delicate maneuvers needed to bring the small craft between the meteor and the Earth, making minor course corrections based on Cindy's reports. After a few tense moments the gravimetric reading stabilized at midscale and the real work, as Jimmy had called it, was ready. Cindy found she had been holding her breath and let it out in a gasp.

"Be sure to adjust your oxygen as you need it," came Jimmy's voice as Cindy sucked in a lungful of air. "And be careful not to raise the level of oxygen too high."

"I know, I know," Cndy called back in irritation. _Hopeless_, she thought. _Here we are, saving the world, and he treats it like a ride around the block._

"Just a reminder," was Jimmy calm reply. "Prepare for transphasing." He made a minor adjustment to a knob and touched a button on his console, and the ship and its crew ceased to exist in the space-time that had brought them forth.

Cindy wasn't sure what to expect, and thought for an instant that Jimmy's generator had failed to work. Then she was suddenly aware that they were alone.

No stars.

No moon.

No Earth.

No light.

Utter and eternal isolation…

"Cindy!" Cindy slowly realized that Jimmy was calling. "Snap out of it! We have work to do!"

"Yes," she answered weakly. "I'm…I'm on it." She forced her mind back to the task at hand. Her viewscreen was black, deprived of the steady electromagnetic emissions that were the backdrop of the Universe. The backlight flare would provide the illumination she needed to target the meteor and allow the sensor to calibrate, allowing Jimmy to keep them at the correct distance from the meteor during their flight. She took a deep breath and pressed the firing button and watched the screen intently, preparing to punch the button that would calibrate the gravimetric sensor in this extradimensional void. She waited, expecting each second to see the burst of brilliance that would reveal their nemesis, and began to fret when nothing seemed to happen. Had the flare been a dud?

Without warning a brilliant radiance light up the endless night behind them, making her blink even though she had been facing the opposite way. On the screen, clearly visible, was the tumbling mass of dark matter. Quickly Cindy adjusted the sensor control to center the shape in the target reticule and as the image began to fade pressed the switch to calibrate the sensor. The needle on her meter immediately swung to midscale and stayed there.

"Okay," she called, her voice quavering a bit. "Sensor calibrated."

"Good job," Jimmy answered soberly, and despite herself Cindy felt a small wave a pleasure at the praise. "Okay. I have the ball. Let me know if you see your needle go outside the limits. We should be out in about fifty-eight minutes."

The next half-hour was torture for Cindy. If the three minutes approach to the meteor had seemed like ten minutes it seemed to her that the half-hour in the featureless dark was an eternity. The only assurance that she was not alone was Jimmy's occasional comments and the faint glow of tell-tales from the instrument panels and her watch. After thirty minutes Cindy could not stand it any more.

"How far have we gone, Jimmy?" she asked.

"About three thousand miles, from my calculations," was his unconcerned reply. "Why?"

"It seems like we've been travelling a lot further."

"I suppose. But I'm used to instrument flying so it's probably not as unsettling to me."

Cindy bristled at what seemed to be criticism. "I'm not unsettled. I was just making conversation."

Jimmy was puzzled at her outburst. "I didn't you were unsettled. I said –"

"I heard what you said. And I'm not unsettled. I'm fine."

"Don't be so touchy," Jimmy said, and Cindy sensed a placating tone in his voice. "It you want to talk it's fine with me."

"I never said I wanted to talk. I just thought you might want to pass the time a little more pleasantly and that some conversation might be nice."

Cindy heard Jimmy let out a breath of disgust and could picture his expresson. "Well, if this is what you consider pleasant conversation, I'll pass, thank you."

"Well, that's fine by me," Cindy snapped.

"Then that makes it fine for two of us."

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

Cindy hunched back in her seat and glared at the gravimetric meter, her boredom and growing anxiety gone. _Stupid patronizing brainiac_, she fumed silently. _Just because he's been on these trips dozens of times and I've only gone on a few he thinks he's the only one who can handle space travel. When we get back to Earth -_

Something in the back of her mind halted her inner tirade. What had Jimmy said? Cindy had been timing the flight with her watch, and it had been thirty minutes when Jimmy had told her that they had travelled about three thousand miles and they were travelling at a constant speed now. Simple arithmetic told her that in an hour they would cover six thousand miles. The thought alarmed her. Her next thought sent a chill down her spine that had nothing to do with the chill in the spacecraft.

_The Earth is eight thousand miles across._

Jimmy had been careful to provide just enough oxygen for two people for a seventy-minute flight due to the cramped confines of the Strato XL. Three minutes had been spent getting to the meteor. That left a total of sixty-seven minutes for the rest of their trip. Try as she might she could not get the numbers to work out to where they could survive an eight thousand mile trip at six thousand miles an hour. They would run out of oxygen twenty minutes too soon. They had enough oxygen left to last both of them for another three thousand miles, or enough for one of them to make it the rest of the way – if something were done in time. But what?

The answer was obvious.

"Jimmy?" she asked, her voice calm but oddly quiet.

"Yes?" Jimmy seemed preoccupied to Cindy. Had he realized his oversight?

"You're not mad at me, are you?"

"Mad? No. Why?"

"I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry if I sounded angry before."

"That's okay. It happens. It's amazing how being in a vacuum can put a lot pressure on someone."

Cindy got the joke but didn't laugh. That didn't surprise Jimmy, but her next words startled him. "I just want you to know that what you're doing…everything you've ever done for us…for me…even if no one else ever knows…I appreciate it. Thanks for everything."

Jimmy's voice was hesitant. "Uh…you're welcome…I guess. Are you okay?"

Her voice was firmer now. "Yes. I'm fine." She glanced at her watch and saw that there were still a few precious minutes left. "Not much longer now, is it?"

"No. Not much longer." He sighed. "And I'm sorry if you thought that I thought that you were afraid."

"That's all right. I may have been, but not anymore. I guess we've always been lucky."

"Lucky?" Jimmy sounded cheerfully derisive. "There's no room for luck in science."

"I mean…we've always been lucky that you were there. And I guess it's important that you always are." She paused. "I think that things will always work out if you're around." There was another pause as she checked her watch again. Time was up. "Best of luck always, Jimmy."

"Okay. And same to you…I guess." Jimmy's voice trailed off into mildly baffled silence.

What Cindy did not know was that while the Earth was eight thousand miles in diameter their course would not take them through its center. The angle of its trajectory would take them about a thousand miles below the surface, making their flight through the Earth about six thousand miles, just as Cindy had calculated. Cindy did not know this. Neither did she know that Jimmy had known, but had not thought to tell her.

All Cindy knew, as she turned her oxygen regulator valve all the way off, was that it was the only solution to a cold equation.

End of Part 14

Author's Note:

A classic science fiction story that was made many years later into a fairly entertaining made-for-cable movie was "The Cold Equations". The original story tells of a young girl who stows away on an emergency shuttle equipped with just enough fuel to take the intended pilot and cargo safely to its destination. If the girl remains on the shuttle the space flight equations state that the ship will run out of fuel and crash, killing her and the pilot and dooming the intended recipients of the emergency medical supplies on board. The only way to ensure the safety of the flight is for the stowaway to be jettisoned into space. The premise of the story is that as much as the human element will fight against them the cold equations must be balanced.


	15. Part 15 Consequences

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 15:

It wasn't long before Jimmy realized that something was terribly wrong. Over the intercom he could hear Cindy struggling for breath and his increasingly concerned calls went unanswered. When he looked back at her he was horrified to see that his worst suspicions were confirmed. Cindy was slumped back in her seat with her eyes closed and fighting for breath as the oxygen in her small compartment was depleted.

"Cindy!" Jimmy shouted. "Increase your oxygen flow! Turn the valve!"

"Don't…worry…about…me…" Cindy labored to say between her gasps for air. "Finish…the…job…"

"Turn the valve!" Jimmy hammered frantically against the clear partition, desperately trying to rouse her. "You can do it! Just reach forward and turn it! _Please!_".

"Finish…the….job..." Slowly her struggles ceased and she fell completely limp.

Jimmy looked around his compartment in a panic for something to smash the barrier between them and provide a way for the oxygen in his half of the cockpit to reach her. Finding nothing, he drove his elbow against the transparency with strength born of ultimate desperation. The barrier, stronger still, failed to yield. Again and again he tried, and each time failed to even crack the material. At last he gave up, realizing that brute strength was not the solution. He quickly ran the limited options through his mind, and almost as quickly discounted most of them. Jettisoning the canopy would kill them both. Shutting down the transphasal generator would cause them and the dark matter to materialize somewhere inside the Earth while traveling at around Mach 12. The only option, he decided, was to shut down the heating system. The cold temperatures could slow down her metabolic processes and allow her to survive more than 15 minutes without oxygen.

Maybe…

Unaware of the inner turmoil that Jimmy was enduring Cindy found herself in an incongruous setting. Several years ago she and her parents had taken a vacation and had wound up in an Old West town, complete with wooden sidewalks, unpaved dirt streets, and a steam railway station. She could not remember the name of the town, and recalled mostly that her mother had been unimpressed with the experience although her father had found it interesting and Cindy herself had thought that some of the old-fashioned gowns were rather romantic. Now she was back in the town, or somewhere very much like it, under a clear blue sky with a bright sun. Various people were moving along the streets and seemed to take little or no notice of her. More curious than alarmed at her circumstances she moved down the street as well, looking about for what she couldn't say.

She had gone about half a block when she stopped, recognizing someone. Outside the train station, leaning against a post, sporting the clothes of stereotypical 19th-century cowboy, and wearing a floppy hat pulled over his eyes against the sun was Angelo. She hurried up to greet him, delighted at the sight of a familiar face in an unfamiliar place.

"Angelo!" she called when she was within a few paces of him.

Angelo pushed his hat up, revealing twinkling eyes and a wide grin. "Hello, Cindy. Just get in?"

"I guess so," Cindy replied, although she couldn't really remember getting here. "Where am I?"

"Where everyone is. On the threshold between where they've been –" He gestured down the railroad track in one direction. "- and where they're going." He gestured in the other direction.

"What are you doing here? And for that matter, what am I doing here?"

"Well…" Angelo straightened up and scratched the back of his head the way Cindy had seen many grizzled old cowboys do in movies. "There's an important decision to make."

"Decision?" Unlike with Lou, each of Angelo's answers seemed to spawn new questions and greater desire for enlightenment.

"Yes. First of all, where do you want to go?"

"What are my choices?"

Angelo gestured up and down the track again. "Forward. Or back."

Cindy peered up the track, squinting against the brilliant light into which the track vanished. She then looked down the track, her gaze following the tapering lines leading to a somehow familiar landscape. "What would you do?"

"Good question." Angelo sat down down on the edge of the train station, his legs swinging freely. "You know what back is like. Forward has a lot to offer. More than you can imagine and wonderful beyond the wildest dreams of what you can." He looked at Cindy, his face suddenly serious. "But what you leave behind, you leave behind."

Cindy sensed that the tone in Angelo's voice was a subtle hint, or more like a warning. "Forever? Or just for a while?"

Angelo gave her a long, thoughtful look before answering. "It depends. I knew someone once who had everything he could have wanted in life. But something important was taken from him and a part of him was lost with it. If it had happened differently, if he had had time to prepare for it, things might have turned out differently. As it was…" Angelo's voice trailed off, and he went on with difficulty. "As it was, it didn't turn out well. With that part of him missing what he could have been became what he never could be. He had all the answers but no solutions, because everything he did had no purpose anymore. Without the substance, only the form was left." He waited a few seconds to let that sink in. "Some people are like that. They don't really know what gives their life meaning until it's gone, but when it's gone nothing is left for them. Forever."

Cindy looked up the track again and fancied that she could almost see tantalizing shapes and visions in the radiance. But if she went that way something would be left behind. She tried to think of what it could be but her past seemed vague and unreal, and of little consequence. Angelo was warning her, but about what? What would she be leaving behind?

What?

Or was it who?

There was only one way to find out. Reluctantly she turned away from the brilliance and faced Angelo again. "I guess I'd better go back," she told him. "Forward will be still be there later." She looked sharply at him and asked uncertainly, "Won't it?"

Angelo nodded gently. "Forward is always there." He reached into his vest pocked and produced a small piece of pasteboard which he handed to Cindy. "I expected that you'd go want to go back, so I had your ticket ready. Have a good journey."

Cindy took it. "Does everyone get a choice here?"

"No," replied Angelo, shaking his head. "But there were some special circumstances concerning your arrival. And," he continued, smiling, "you did ask me to wish you luck. And sometimes, at the right time to the right person, a wish is the same as a prayer." Angelo looked at the train pulling into the station. "You'd best go. No telling when the next train will arrive."

Cindy boarded the train, handing her ticket to the conductor who carefully scrutinized it. He seemed surprised and looked agape at Angelo, who nodded in confirmation. Shrugging, the conductor punched it without comment and handed it back to Cindy before signaling the driver to get under way. As they began pulling away from the station Cindy's thoughts began to grow clearer. In particular, something Angelo had told her earlier came into her mind and she shouted to make her voice heard above the rising noise of the steam engine.

"You said that Jimmy could lose everything," she called. "Did he? I mean, will he?"

"No," Angelo shouted back. "He'll be all right." As the train pulled beyond the range of his voice, Cindy barely heard his final words. "You made the right choice."

Cindy took a seat in the passenger car, feeling relieved. It wasn't until the train was well under way that the meaning of his final words struck her.

End of Part 15


	16. Part 16 Back to Normal

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Part 16:

Had anyone been cruising several hundred miles above the mid-Pacific region they would have been treated to a wonderful view of the Earth's terminator as it slowly moved across the broad sapphire expanse of glittering water. Although it was a glorious show it was nonetheless a daily event and much the same from day to day, with little change in the daily pattern of light and shadow that marked the passing of days. Today, however, was an exception. Without warning a small brightly-colored object appeared in the skies, streaking upwards toward the outer reaches of the atmosphere in frantic haste, almost as though hunted by some relentless demon. A closer look would have revealed that this might very well have been the case as a massive shape shrouded in shadow would have been seen against the half-lit planet below in close pursuit of the craft.

Inside the spaceship Jimmy Neutron had no interest in the beautiful panorama that lay spread beneath and behind him. Satisfied that the dark matter meteor was safely clear and no longer a threat he parted company with the unwelcome cosmic visitor and wheeled his vessel in a great semicircle back towards his planet. It had been nearly twenty minutes since Cindy had last spoken and his only thought now was to drive the Strato XL back into the lower life-sustaining regions of the atmosphere. He knew every limitation of the vehicle he was piloting and he pushed it to its limits as he powered its way into the thickening layers of air like a hypersonic bullet. Only when the increased drag on the craft told him that he was safely within the atmosphere did he throttle back. At the same time he slammed his fist against a large red button, firing the explosive bolts that jettisoned the clear canopy free of the rocket to fall in a graceful arc towards the water far below. The wind whistling past was brisk but warmer than the chilled confines of the cockpit had been.

_Got to find someplace to get her warm_, he thought_. There should be some atoll or island somewhere around to land. I have to revive her as soon as possible. If only it hasn't been too long._

After scanning the ocean below for what seemed to him like days he spotted a dark shape several miles ahead and to the left, surrounded by a fringe of white surf. Without a second thought he turned the XL towards it and less than a minute later came to a soft if hurried landing on the narrow beach of a deserted atoll. Almost before the craft had settled he leapt out of the cockpit and reached into the back, pulling Cindy out and laying her gently on the black sand. As he did so he couldn't help noticing that her hands and arms were like ice, and that she didn't seem to be breathing. He recalled his procedures for CPR and prepared to administer artificial resuscitation, but as he tilted her head back she stirred and blearily opened her eyes. After blinking a few times at his astonished face, she managed to get out a few slurred words.

"Why is it so cold?" she asked.

There were a thousand things Jimmy wanted to say, but all he could get out was "Cindy? You're all right?"

"Just cold. And a small headache." She looked around, trying to place her surroundings. "Where are we?"

"On an atoll a few hundred miles west of the International Date Line," Jimmy replied as he helped Cindy to sit up. "Take it easy. You've been through a lot."

The events of the past hour came back to her. "Is the meteor – "

"Gone. We did it." As Cindy shivered and rubbed her arms to stimulate the circulation Jimmy cursed himself for not having the foresight to bring a blanket along. Fortunately, however, the air was warm and it did not take long for the last rays of the setting sun to fully revive Cindy. Once both of them were sufficiently warmed up they boarded the Strato XL for the trip home. Despite her recent ordeal Cindy half-wished that they could stay and enjoy the tropical sunset, but it was midnight or later back in Retroville and she knew that they had to get back. Reluctantly she settled back into her seat and bid farewell to the small island with a mental note to someday visit the tropics again.

The trip back was strangely uncomfortable. Jimmy seemed relieved enough that she was all right and that the meteor was no longer a threat, but Cindy knew that somehow things between them had changed. Unsure what to do she said, "Uh, Jimmy?"

"Yes?"

"Umm…you know that the Retroville Days Dance is coming up, and I was wondering…" She paused to get a reading on Jimmy's reaction and failed. "Well, would you…do you want to go with me?"

Jimmy sounded almost embarrassed. "Thanks, Cindy, but I don't think I can. I mean…I have things to do."

"Things," Cindy repeated tonelessly.

"Yeah. You know, maintenance in the lab, some equations I've been meaning to get to…stuff like that. You know."

Cindy hated lies and detested bad ones. "Things."

"Yeah. You know. Things."

"Things that can't wait or be rescheduled?"

"No. I mean, yes. I mean…" Jimmy floundered for the right words. "It's complicated."

There was a short silence as Cindy fought to keep her voice and emotions under control before speaking. When she did speak her voice was as cold as she had felt a short while ago. "All right, Neutron. Out with it."

"Out with what?"

"What's going on? Why are you avoiding going to the dance with me?"

"I'm not. I really have –"

"_Answer me!_"

From behind Cindy could see Jimmy's shoulders slump and heard him heave a sigh. "It's not going to work, Cindy," he said.

Cindy's anger gave way to bewilderment. "What? What do you mean, 'It's not going to work?' Everything turned out all right, didn't it?"

"Don't you get it?" Jimmy's voice reflected the anguish that Cindy couldn't see on his face. "The only reason we got together at all was because I wasn't me. I wanted to impress someone enough that they'd like me for who I was, but the only way for that to happen was to be someone else. And in one day I nearly got you killed and almost let Retroville and maybe most the inhabited world be destroyed because of that."

"Hey, you didn't point that meteor at Retroville," Cindy protested angrily. "And you didn't decide to have me come along. All you did was do what had to be done."

"I know," Jimmy answered in a suddenly quiet tone. "It's who I have to be. I forgot and tried to change that and things almost got out of hand."

"But it doesn't have to be that way!" Cindy argued.

Jimmy shook his head. "It's a risk I can't afford to take. I'm sorry."

Cindy took a moment to steady herself and when she spoke there was a bitter edge to her voice. "I guess I forgot, too, Jimmy. I forgot that you'll go through space and time and even other dimensions to risk everything you have to make sure the world is safe for another day. I forgot you'd take any risk to see that things always work out right." She had to stop before going on. "Except the one risk that really matters. You can't risk finding out whether you really mean something to someone, because it would mean admitting that maybe they meant something to you."

If Jimmy heard Cindy's words he gave no sign that he had. They made the rest of in silence with Jimmy landing the Strato XL in the launch silo beneath his clubhouse when they arrived. The two climbed out of the rocket, carefully avoiding each other's gaze, and Cindy silently made her way towards the exit while Jimmy puttered about with unnecessary make-work. Before leaving Cindy half-turned and paused, and Jimmy waited to see what it was that she planned to do.

"Just a word of advice for the future, Neutron," she said, very quietly. "Girls aren't all that impressed by guys trying to impress them. Sincerity generally goes a lot further." Then she left, leaving Jimmy silent and alone in his lab.

End of Part 16


	17. Epilog Just for Tonight

The Devil Comes Back to Retroville

by Gary D. Snyder

Epilog:

Jimmy picked indifferently at the ice cream in front of him, oblivious to the clamor and music of the Retroville Days Dance all around him. He had not wanted to come but his parents, convinced that it was time for him to participate in social activities, had overruled his protests and dragged him along. At first he had stayed with Carl and Sheen, but as the evening had gone on they had drifted away to pursue their own interests and had left him alone. The dance was now almost over and he looked forward to returning home, unhappily convinced that the social activities his parents valued so highly were not for him.

During his time alone he had thought about a great many things, or at least a great deal about one thing: his last meeting with Cindy. Since their return from space he had not seen nor spoken to her, burying himself in various experiments and projects. One project was attempting to learn how Cindy had survived with her oxygen supply shut off. He had carefully calculated the available volume of her compartment and had determined that, even with the reduction in her metabolic rate due to the decreased temperature in the rocket ship, she should have been comatose or worse. That she had come through without apparent harm was a mystery – although _miracle_ might have been closer to the mark.

A more bothersome issue was how they had parted. He was sure he had been right in what he had told her. He had special gifts, and with those gifts came responsibilities, including the responsibility to protect the people he cared about from harm despite the personal cost. Cindy would never understand that, he knew, and would probably despise him for his choice. But he had carefully analyzed the situation, and he realized that the decision came down to what really was more important – how she felt about him, or how he felt about her.

The answer was obvious. His choice had been the only logical one.

So why did he feel so empty?

Laying his spoon aside he cupped his chin in his hands and stared morosely at the crowd of people dancing to the music of the live band. Cindy, he knew, was out there somewhere. _Dancing with Nick, most likely_, he thought. Nick always made it seem so easy, whether it came to bending the rules or getting the girl. Thinking about the vast differences between them made the emptiness inside Jimmy seem even emptier. _I need help_, he thought miserably.

"Sounds like you have issues," a voice behind him said.

Jimmy turned to face the young black man who had spoken. He wasn't anyone Jimmy recognized, but his smile made Jimmy feel as though they were old friends. "I'm sorry," Jimmy said. "Do I know you?"

"You probably know some acquaintances of mine," the other replied. "My name is Angelo. Angelo de la Fe, for short. I'm afraid that my full name is quite a mouthful." He regarded Jimmy with a kindly eye. "So what's bothering you?"

"Well…" Jimmy was hesitant about sharing his personal problems but a stranger seemed to be the right person to share this one with. And he felt that he could trust this stranger. "I kind of have a problem. You see, I had to make a decision and I think it hurt someone pretty badly."

"Must have been a tough decision," was all Angelo said.

"It was." Jimmy sighed. "But I had to make it. I didn't have any right to put what I wanted before the welfare of everyone else."

"Must get awful tiring."

"What?"

Angelo grinned at him. "Carrying the weight of the world like that."

Jimmy looked shocked. "I don't do that. I mean, I only do what I have to do. Logically the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. Don't they?"

Angelo laughed, shaking his head. "The mass of the many outweighs the mass of the one. But mass you can measure. Needs you can't."

Jimmy was more puzzled than offended by Angelo's laughter. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Angelo answered, taking a seat next to Jimmy, "that some questions – the most important ones – can't be answered with logic. One of the hardest to answer is where the responsibility to one's self ends and the responsibility to others begins. You can't use science or math to figure out where to draw the line."

"How then?"

"With this." Angelo tapped his chest. "The most important decisions are decided here. They always have been. They always will be."

Jimmy hung his head. "But what if I'm wrong?" he asked helplessly."Nothing is certain in this world. Does that mean you should stop trying because you might fail? When was the last time you refused to work an equation because you thought that you might not get the answer you wanted?"

Jimmy found himself looking at things in a confusing new light but refused to give up. "No," he admitted. "But that's what I'm good at. I'm just a big brain, like everyone says. How do I know if I'm really able to make those kind of decisions?"

Angelo looked thoughtful. "Did you ever hear of a man named Descartes?"

"René Descartes?" Jimmy asked. "The French mathematician and philosopher?"

"That's the one. Remember the fundamental premise of his discourses?"

That was an easy question to answer. "_Cogito, ergo sum._ 'I think, therefore I am.'"

"Exactly." Angelo looked expectantly at him.

That point was a lot harder for Jimmy to grasp. "I'm not sure what you're getting at."

"Just this. Descartes built his whole philosophy on that one statement. But there's a subtle point that people sometimes miss. Sometimes just being able to ask the question means you already have the answer."

"I think I see," said Jimmy. "Does that mean that if I can make the decisions that I'll make the right ones?"

"Maybe. Maybe not," Angelo replied with a shrug. "No one in this life gets things right one hundred percent of the time. But there are three things you should always remember."

"What are those?"

Angelo ticked off his fingers. "First, mistakes are how you grow. Second, sometimes it's the trying that really counts. And third, the great gift of youth is having the time to make mistakes." Angelo stood up. "There's still time, Jimmy. Trust me." He turned and began to walk away.

"There's still time," Jimmy murmured to himself. As he was pondering this he heard Angelo call out to him and he turned to look.

"One other thing, Jimmy," Angelo was saying with a smile. "You might want to check the gaskets on your oxygen regulator valves. I think one of them might be leaking…just a little."

Jimmy thought about this. _Yes, that would explain it_, he suddenly realized. An oxygen leak in Cindy's compartment coupled with the reduced metabolism from her semiconscious state and the cold could explain how she had survived without ill effect. "Hey, wait a minute!" he said suddenly, turning to confront Angelo . "How did you know about…" His voice trailed off as he saw that Angelo had disappeared, having apparently melded into the crowd..

With a shrug he began wading through the mass of people, looking here and there. After a few minutes of jostling he finally found who he was looking for. Cindy was alone at a table, moodily sipping an ice cream float, and as Jimmy approached her she fixed him with an impassive eye. "What is it, Neutron?" she asked with a hint of irritation. "Can't you see I'm busy…with things?" She flavored the last couple words with a touch of venom.

"I know," he answered. "I just wanted to say a few things – I mean words. Then I'll go."

"Then make it fast," she answered, busy with her drink.

"Well, I wanted to thank you for everything you did the other night. It was…pretty swell of you."

"Do tell," Cindy responded coldly. "Is that it?"

"No." Jimmy drew a breath. "I also want to apologize…for being a jerk."

Cindy's sucking stopped for a fraction of an instant as the words sank in. _It's a start_, she thought as she resumed drinking the float, but all she said was, "I'm used to it." As Jimmy stood there uncomfortably she turned to directly face him for the first time. "Was that all?"

"No. No it's not." After facing the menace of a dark matter meteor without a qualm Jimmy suddenly noticed that he was sweating. Cindy noticed it as well and waited expectantly. "I just wanted to say…that I think we're still young enough to take a few risks." He held out his hand. "Would you like to dance?"

Cindy silently regarded the hand as conflicting thoughts went through her mind. On the one had, Jimmy had been a jerk. On the other, he had apologized for that and was doing a good job at being sincere. He probably wasn't a great dancer. But then again, this was a dance, the band had been playing fast dance music, and she hadn't danced at all tonight. She took his hand and stood up. "I guess I'll risk it," she replied.

As they moved onto the dance floor a young black man had been speaking with the band's leader. "Hey, my man, can you spare a favor for a fellow music lover?"

"Say it and we'll play it," the musician replied, progressing through the final chords of the song.

"How about _Just for Tonight_?" Angelo asked as the music came to an end.

The rest of the band looked doubtful. "Nice tune," one said. "But we don't have the music here."

Angelo nodded. "Check and see," he smiled, walking away.

With shakes of their heads the players began riffling through their sheet music, and were astonished to a man to find the requested song in each of their stacks. They stared at each other for a moment, sure that something unusual was going on, when the leader of the band finally shrugged. "You heard the man," he said as he adjusted the settings on his guitar. "and the natives are getting restless. One, two, three, four…"

The strains of the slow ballad began just as Cindy and Jimmy took the dance floor. For a moment they both considered retreating from the prospect of a slow dance, but the moment passed and they found themselves in each other arms, moving slowly in time to the music.

_"Let's take forever -_

It doesn't seem right

For our time together

To end with the light.

The stars in the heavens

Will fade from our sight,

But love that burns truer

Is meant more than just for tonight."

Cindy found that Jimmy's slow dancing was better than she had expected. "I'm impressed, Neutron," she commented as he led her in careful arcs around the dance floor.

"Oh. Thanks," Jimmy replied, somewhat embarrassed. " But I really wasn't trying to impress you."

"I know," she smiled.

From the sidelines Angelo watched the two, enjoying the music and the moment. "Come on out, Lou," he suddenly said, apparently to himself. "I know you're here, so you may as well show yourself."

Lou stepped out from behind a light post and slowly approached, watching the dancers as he walked. "What, no gloating?" he asked as he took a place next to Angelo.

Angelo shook his head. "Not my style. You should know that."

Lou grunted but said nothing.

"You surprised me, Lou," Angelo said. "Did you really think that you'd get away with it?"

"It was worth a shot. You can't blame me for trying." Lou continued to watch Cindy, something that Angelo took careful note of.

"They make a nice couple, don't they?" Angelo finally commented.

"I suppose."

"Careful. Your green eyes are showing."

Lou shook his head in disgust. "What does Neutron have that I don't?" he spat.

Angelo gave Lou a look of mild surprise. "A chance," he replied quietly.

Lou scoffed. "You don't really think that they actually have a chance together, do you?'

Angelo smiled a knowing smile. "Maybe."

"What makes you think so?" asked Lou, who wasn't fooled by the word.

Angelo smiled. "Because you said it yourself, Lou. You and Jimmy have a lot in common. All three of you, as a matter of fact." His smile faded as he continued to watch Jimmy and Cindy as they swirled across the dance floor. "They don't like to lose. So come what may, they'll try again…and again…and again." The music swelled to a glorious climax. "Until they win."

THE END

Author's Note:

This is an unusual story where the epilog is longer than any of the chapters, but considering the theme of the story it seems natural that there's a lot going on behind the scenes that needs some clarification. On the other hand, I don't want to clarify things too much so that the reader can form his or her own opinion about things.

As with most of my stories this one has a song, of sorts. Music was such a part of the original Jimmy Neutron movie and some of the episodes that I can't help but thinking of some musical theme in parts of my stories. Unfortunately I don't know music notation and can only provide the lyrics so half of the experience is missing. Trust me, the words and music do go together in my head.


End file.
